


United We Stand

by the_random_writer



Series: Separated Twins [21]
Category: Bourne (Movies), RED (Movies), The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Genre: Advice, Angst, Arguing, Brothers, Central Intelligence Agency, Childhood Memories, Crossover, Emotions, Gen, Guilt, Long Lost Relations, Memories, Plans For The Future, Reunions, Secrets, Separated Twins, Shame, Sibling Bonding, Spies & Secret Agents, Starting Over, Tears, Teasing, Trouble At Work, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2020-01-24 08:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18567850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: A crossover where William Cooper from 'RED' and Kirill from 'The Bourne Supremacy' are identical twins.Born in Berlin to an American mother and a Russian father, the twins were separated at the age of ten by their parents' divorce. William went to the United States with their mother, while Kirill went to the Soviet Union with their father.Each installment in theseriestells the story of a moment in the twins' lives. Some are humorous, some are serious. They are all more or less standalone, but interconnect and refer to each other.Pamela Landy confronts William on the whereabouts of his twin brother, who everyone believes is dead. What William doesn’t realize is that Pamela knows more about Kirill than he does.Takes place in early January 2010, immediately after 'Remember Me'.This is the story I would have written back in August 2015, except for the fact I was totally new to writing, and had no idea how. Better late than never :-)





	1. Chapter 1

His answer was an excellent sign.

If Cooper was willing to talk, he might be willing to listen. If he was willing to listen, then maybe, just maybe, with the right carrot or the right stick, or with some gentle persuasion from the right person at the right time, he would be willing to help.

She _really_ needed his help. Without Cooper on board, her plan for the Russian would be dead in the water.

As would her impressive career.

Fortunately, she wasn't the only person in the room facing work-related troubles. So, if Cooper agreed to help her, she would agree to help him. Quid pro quo. Tit for tat. One rescued career for another.

"Kiryusha?" Pamela repeated, struggling to match the childish name to the man. "Is that what you called him?"

Cooper nodded. "When we were children, yeah." He smiled, but his eyes were full of sadness and pain. "That was the name only family members used. Me, our mom and our dad."

"Tell me more about him."

"What would you like to know?"

"How about anything that can help me decide if you should or shouldn't be fired?"

He tried to hold a neutral expression, but his brows betrayed him, twitching into the slightest of frowns. An interesting reaction—indignation instead of alarm. "On what grounds?" he asked, even though he must surely know the answer already.

"On the grounds you withheld information the Company had a right to know. That you had a legal and contractual obligation to tell us."

She expected resistance. Instead, he sighed and asked, "What do you already know?"

So, he'd fucked up, and he knew it. And more importantly, he seemed inclined to admit it.

Good. One less obstacle to overcome.

She opened a drawer to pull out a second personnel file. This one was thicker and older, light blue instead of beige, tattered and worn around the edges, with Cooper's name in bold on the front. She dropped it on the table and flipped it open to read the summary on the first page. She'd skimmed it this morning, so she already knew what the most important points were.

"Let's see. That you were born in West Berlin in May 1972, to a Russian father and an American mother." Her eyes went to the mother's photo, to the warm smile and bright hazel eyes visible even through the blur. The space for the father's photo was blank. Hardly surprising, given the circumstances under which he'd vanished from her co-worker's life. "That your birth name was William Orlov, later changed to William Cooper. That you had an identical twin brother called Kirill, fourteen minutes younger than you."

She flipped the page over. "That your parents divorced when you were ten, at which point you and your mother moved to the United States, while your father and brother presumably moved to the Soviet Union. That you've had no contact with your father or brother since." She held up a piece of paper, with 'FILE COPY' stamped in red at the top of the page. "That, according to this letter you provided as part of your application in 2002, your brother died in a car crash in Moscow in 1988."

She could only imagine how hard that letter must have been to receive. To go looking for the twin brother you'd lost after a gap of twenty years, only to learn he was lost for good, and you would never see or speak to him again? If she wasn't too busy trying to save their careers, she would spare a moment to feel sorry for him.

She smiled, trying to put him at ease. "Did I get anything wrong?"

He shook his head. "No, ma'am. That's all correct."

Ma'am. Jesus. Tom Cronin was right—you could take the boy out of the Corps, but you couldn't take the Corps out of the boy…

She closed his file and set it aside. Now, came the real test. "Except for the part about your brother being dead, of course."

His answer was a quizzical frown.

She scanned his expression, trying to figure him out. Was he pretending he didn't know what she meant? Even worse, was it possible he actually _didn't_? Had she judged this situation all wrong, and instead of confronting him about his wrongdoings, she was about to give him the most upsetting news of his life?

She opened the other file, pulled out a grainy ten-by-eight photo and set it on the table between them. Kirill Alexandrovich Orlov, scowling, casually dressed, a cigarette clinging to the edge of his mouth, standing on the steps of the FSB Headquarters in Moscow. "Because, unless you've figured out how to be in two places at the same time, this man can only be your twin brother. Which means he's very much alive."

Cooper laid a hand on the photo, tentatively, as if he was frightened to touch it, and stared at it for what felt like a very long time. Emotions skimmed across his face—anger, fear, love, regret, pain and sadness again, but thankfully, no confusion or shock. Which meant he knew the whole truth. Good. He could save his confusion and shock for the revelations to come.

Sighing, he pushed the photo back to her side of the desk. "Yeah, he is."

"Did you know he was alive? And I advise you to think very carefully before you answer that, Mister Cooper. I'm not exaggerating when I say your career literally depends on what you say next."

He nodded. "I knew Kirill was alive."

"So, you're freely admitting you withheld information the Company had a right to know?"

"I am, yes."

His posture was contained but relaxed, which meant either he knew how to hide his fear, or, more likely, he wasn't afraid. That might or might not work in her favour. Fear made people cooperate, but sometimes, it made them panic as well, and as anyone who'd worked for the Company as long as she had knew, panic often got people killed. For a problem as tricky as this, better to have him keep his cool, work through the solution with her one step at a time.

"Did you know at the time of your original application?" she asked him next. "Or, at any time before your employment contract kicked in?"

He shook his head. "When I provided that letter, I had no reason to believe the contents weren't true."

"Are you sure? And the reason I ask is that if I later find out you're lying, that you _did_ know, and deliberately provided the CIA with false or misleading information eight years ago, I'll have no choice but to refer this to the OIG." She wanted to help him, but perjury was an offense even her influence couldn't conceal. "If that happens, things will go very badly for you."

He looked her straight in the eye and said, "I didn't find out my brother was alive until a short time ago. I give you my word."

"Precisely when?"

"On the twelfth of September last year."

"That's almost four months ago. Plenty of time to come clean."

"Yeah."

"So, why didn't you?"

"Because I made a conscious decision not to."

He'd admitted his guilt, so she already had what she needed, but the analyst in her wanted to know—why had he taken the course of action he'd taken? Would his choices make sense, and in his shoes, would she have done the same thing herself?

"Explain."

He took a deep breath. "When I found out Kirill wasn't dead, I also found out he was an FSB agent. And not a support or admin agent, either. An active, operational agent. The kind who kicks down people's doors and who carries and uses a gun. I knew that if I wanted to stay in my job, which I did, I couldn't acknowledge him, or have any kind of contact with him. We decided the safest solution was to continue to think he was dead, and to go on with our lives as if nothing had happened."

"We?"

He winced, realizing he'd made a mistake. "My wife and I."

She briefly opened his file again. "Michelle, maiden name McNally, two children, married for almost eight years."

"That's her, and yes." He flashed a slight smile. "Our anniversary's in March."

If he was lucky, he wouldn't end up spending the day with his lawyer.

"Do you think that was wise?" she asked. "Discussing a matter as tricky as this with someone who has no Company clearance?"

His tone and posture stiffened. "I don't need clearance to talk to my wife about my own brother."

"But you _do_ need clearance to talk to her about your own duties. If you told your wife you couldn't contact your brother for security reasons, that could have led her to figure out you do sensitive work."

"This is Langley. Even the _cleaners_ do sensitive work."

"Point taken."

"It was a difficult issue, and I needed to know what she thought," he said in a more cordial tone. "But I'm not stupid, and neither is she. I didn't tell her anything I wasn't allowed to tell her, and she knew better than to ask."

"I'm curious, what _did_ your wife think?"

"About what?"

She tapped on the photo. "About your brother being alive, for starters."

"She was as shocked as I was when I found out. She couldn't believe it."

"So, you'd previously told her you had an identical twin?"

"She's my wife. Of course I had. Not long after we first started dating. _And_ about my parents as well. Everything. I don't lie to her, I don't cheat on her, and other than what I'm not allowed to tell her because of my job, I don't keep things from her."

His words confirmed something she'd learned from the people he worked with—as committed as he was to his job, Cooper was a big family man. He worked in a notoriously challenging group—a place where marriages went to die—and not only was he still happily married, there were no rumours of any workplace affairs. So, whatever else he might be, he was a man who loved and respected his wife. Now, if she could just persuade him to extend that devotion to his long-lost twin brother as well, bringing Orlov in from the cold might not be as hard as she'd feared.

"When did you tell her Kirill wasn't dead?"

"A week after I found out."

"Not straight away?"

"No."

"You just told me you don't keep things from her."

"I don't. But I needed some time to come to terms with the news, figure out how best to approach it. I knew it could have a huge impact on us. _And_ on our kids. It's not just me in our marriage." His eyes flicked to her left hand, to her empty ring finger, reminding her that marriage was something she knew nothing about. "I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing."

"What did your wife think you should do?"

"She thought I should keep the news to myself."

That was… "Interesting."

"I'd already told her I couldn't contact Kirill for security reasons. She said, if that was the case, there was no point in telling you he was really alive, because you wouldn't believe what I said. That whatever assurances I gave you, you'd still view me as a risk, and revoke or reduce my security rating."

"She's right. We would have."

"Even if I'd promised not to even _think_ about Kirill?"

Sighing, she leaned back in her chair. Time for her to share some advice on something _he_ knew nothing about. "Mister Cooper, if there's one thing you learn in a senior leadership role like mine, it's how unpredictable people can be. You _think_ you know how you would have behaved, you tell yourself you wouldn't have tried to contact your brother, but I think you would have been surprised at how quickly those promises vanished. Kirill's your identical twin. Not some random Russian stranger. You _really_ expect me to believe you wouldn't have given into temptation? That you wouldn't have tried to get in touch?"

"There was another reason I didn't want to. It wasn't just the security issue."

"Such as?"

"The fact he's basically an assassin. He eliminates people the FSB don't like."

Calmly, so as not to provoke him, she said, "Not like we've never done that ourselves." And if the rumours she'd heard were true—rumours she hadn't been able to check no matter where and how hard she'd looked—he knew far more about the subject than she did.

He went deathly still. "That's different," he stiffly said.

"The reason, yes. The motivation, yes. The end result, no. Whether we eliminate targets because they're a threat to national security, or because they scratched up the President's car, they're just as dead and gone as your brother's. You ever thought about that?"

He sat back, eyes cold, lips pressed together, hands tightly clasped in his lap, making it clear that, whatever he thought of her question, he had nothing more to say on the matter. She wasn't surprised. He was smart enough to know when to talk and when not to talk, and this was a moment _not_ to talk. And, to be fair, the work he might have done for Cynthia Wilkes, either on or off the books, had no bearing on her current problem. Better to leave it alone for now.

"So, your wife thought it best to keep your news about Kirill to yourself?"

His shoulders relaxed. "That's what her analysis favoured, yes."

"Analysis?"

"Her risk-reward assessment."

"Is she a Risk Management specialist?"

"A lawyer."

"Criminal Law?"

"Intellectual Property Law."

"Pity," Pamela drily said. "If she was in Criminal Law, she could represent you."

"Does that mean you're going to ask the OIG to look into my conduct?"

"Not necessarily. It depends on what else you tell me by the end of the meeting."

He held his hands wide. "What else do you want to know?"

"You said you found out the truth about your brother back in September."

"Yes."

"How did you find out?"

He hesitated, then said, "From a contact at another intelligence service."

"A friendly one?" she asked, even though she already knew which service he meant.

"The friendliest. MI6."

"And who was the contact?"

He shook his head. "Unless you absolutely need to know, I'd rather not say. I don't want to get them into trouble."

But he was happy to get _himself_ into trouble? Jesus. No wonder Wilkes had so brazenly stolen him from Evelyn's group. Cynthia had always valued people who knew how to fall on their sword, especially when they could do it without pointing the sharp end at her. They hadn't called her Waterproof Wilkes for nothing…   

"Was it Nigel Henderson?" she asked.

He huffed an impatient sigh. "If you already knew, why the hell did you ask?"

"Because I wanted to see how honest you were willing to be. If you'd given me a bullshit answer, or another person's name, this meeting would have ended right here. And don't worry. We won't cause any trouble for Nigel. Believe it or not, you're not the only person he knows at Langley."

"Thank you."

"So, who approached who?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Did you ask Nigel to look for your brother, or did Nigel come to you with the news?"

"Why would I ask him to look for my brother?"

She laid a hand on his file. "Maybe you didn't believe the letter. Moscow's where your brother last lived, and Nigel's been stationed there since April last year. Maybe you thought he could check some government records for you."

"Except I worked in Moscow for eighteen months. If I'd wanted to check some government records, I could have done it myself."

She'd read that part of his file. From a professional angle, his time in Moscow had been a success. He hadn't racked up any massive achievements, but unlike some of his Station colleagues, he hadn't been caught doing something naughty and PNG'd by the Kremlin, either. She couldn't speak for the personal angle. What effect had it had on him, being sent to live and work in the city where, under slightly different circumstances, he and his brother might have been born? How much of an emotional struggle had that side of the posting been?

"That was several years ago," she reminded him. "Maybe your need to check is a recent thing."

"That's not what happened, but why would it matter even if it was?"

"It's about _intent_ , Mister Cooper. Things will go much easier for you if you can demonstrate you were simply the passive recipient of some alarming news. If anyone thinks you turned over the pot, you'll be in more serious trouble."

"I didn't turn over the pot." He sighed, twiddled his thumbs, then grudgingly confirmed, "Nigel came to me."

"Tell me more about how it happened."

"Nigel was working at the British Embassy in Moscow. He came into contact with Kirill while he was carrying out a routine surveillance operation."

"Against the FSB?" she asked, struggling to think of why else MI6 would want to watch Kirill. The Russian was a real piece of work—he'd killed and terrorized people on FSB orders, had sometimes taken 'jobs' on the side—but other than the usual slew of gunrunner contacts, he had no links to terrorist groups or organized crime. At least, not that she'd been able to find. Maybe MI6 knew something she didn't.

"He didn't say, I didn't ask."

A sensible approach.

"Did Nigel know you had a twin brother who was supposed to be dead?"

"Yes."

"Must have been quite a shock for him, then. Seeing Kirill, I mean."

"Said it gave him a hell of a fright."

"He must be a very good friend."

"Who, Nigel?"

"Yes."

Cooper narrowed his eyes. "What makes you say that?"

"Because you told him something you've never told a soul here." She tapped the photo of Kirill again. "I did some digging, asked around. Nobody you've _ever_ worked with here knows you used to have a twin brother, or that your father was Russian. Not even Evelyn McNamara." His second boss at the CIA, for whom he'd worked for almost five years. A competent and capable woman, if slightly too political for Pamela's liking.

"My family background is a private matter. It's nobody's business except my own."

"If it's such a private matter, why did you share it with Nigel?"

"Because I wanted to. Because I trusted him. Because I knew he wouldn't judge."

"You think people here would judge?"

"Being born in West Berlin, and having a Russian father?" He barked a sarcastic laugh. "This is the CIA. You bet your _ass_ some people would judge."

She couldn't contradict him—they both knew he was right. For some people here, there was no such thing as nuance or shades of grey. In their view, if you weren't baseball, guns and mom's apple pie to the core, you might as well be working for Al-Qaeda.

"Tell me how you and Nigel met."

"Why?"

"Humour me."

He shook his head. "I'm done with these games. I'm not telling you something you already know."

"What makes you think I already know?"

He gestured at his file. "See that green piece of paper sticking out at the top? That means you have my confidential sleeve, the one you have to fill out two forms to obtain. Which means you have my Marine Corps jacket." He flashed a tight-lipped smile. "You know _exactly_ how we met."

Again, he was right.

"It happened in Yemen," she started. "You were the NCO on the MSG post, he was the British embassy's MI6 man, keeping an eye on some trouble left from the First Civil War. You met him when he came to the US embassy for an intelligence sharing session. You met him again by chance a few weeks later, when you were both off-duty, in a café a few blocks away. As you were leaving, a firefight erupted outside. Long story short, you pushed him out of the way of a bullet, took a through and through to the stomach. The bullet punctured an artery, but he got you to a hospital before you bled out. You saved his life, he saved yours."

"He did."

"Which explains why you trusted him enough to tell him about your brother."

"There were other reasons, but that was a big part of it, yeah."

"Near death experiences tend to have that effect."

"Are you speaking from experience there?"

She was, as it happened. But this was neither the time nor the place to drag up her past.

"Did you tell anyone you served with in the Marines?" she asked. "About Kirill, I mean."

He sighed. "No."

"Why not?"

"Will the answer impact how you deal with what we're talking about right now?"

"I doubt it."

"Then why are you asking?"

She shrugged. "Just curious. Seems strange to share something so personal with an upper-class British guy ten years older than you, but not with any of your American co-workers, or any of your fellow marines."

"Like I said, there were other reasons." He crossed his arms and set his mouth in a line.

"How did Nigel tell you about Kirill?" she asked, taking the hint. "Phone call? Email? Letter?"

"Face to face."

"You met with him?"

He nodded. "He called me at the end of August last year, asked me to meet him in London, said he had something he wanted to show me that he couldn't put in an email or letter."

"You didn't ask what the something was?"

"I'm CIA, he's MI6. We both knew better than that."

That was fair—she would have done the same thing herself. "What did he show you?"

"Some photos he'd taken of Kirill in Moscow."

She opened his brother's folder again to pull out a bundle of seven-by-fives. "You mean these photos?" she said, laying the stack on the desk.

Sighing, he rifled through the pile, checking them one by one. "These photos, yes."

"Did Nigel give you copies?"

"Yes."

"Where are those copies now?"

"In the safe at my house."

"Has your wife seen them?"

He gave her a quizzical look. "Of course she has."

"Anyone else?"

"Just her." Quickly, he added, "And she knows not to talk. She'll keep what she saw to herself."

"Good." Right now, the fewer people who knew about Orlov, the better. She gathered the photos and put them away. "You met Nigel on the twelfth of September, in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel in London. Is that correct?"

"Yes." His quizzical look returned. "But how the hell did you know that?"

"It's a long story."

"I've been totally honest with you. The least you could do is return the favour."

"I _can't_ be totally honest with you, Mister Cooper," was her tart response. "You don't have the proper security clearance."

He sat back, crossing his arms. "Fine. Don't tell me, then."

The way he said it—the flash of petulant contempt—in that moment, he looked and sounded just like his twin.

Great. Now she'd pissed off the rational sibling as well.

She waved a white flag. "What I _can_ tell you is that I was recently in Moscow on business."

"And?"

"And while I was there, your brother did something that brought him to my attention." An understatement, but not a lie. She held up a hand to ward off the question she could see in his eyes was coming next. "Right now, I can't tell you what. Just know it wasn't good."

"So, you found out who he was, then ran his name through Company systems."

"I did, yes." And two other Five Eyes systems as well.

"Which led you to me," he concluded.

She laid a hand on his file. " _And_ to your death notice letter."

"Which made you suspicious."

"Once I knew for sure the two Kirill Orlovs were one and the same, yes, of course it did. He was supposed to be dead, which meant somebody, somewhere had lied. For obvious reasons, I had to be sure it wasn't you."

"How did you check?"

"I pulled your home phone records, checked for calls to or from anywhere in Eastern Europe in the last twelve months."

"Did you get the proper warrant for that?" he asked, his tone sarcastically polite.

"This isn't my first rodeo, Mister Cooper. And, considering why we're having this meeting, I'm not sure you of all people should be making that point."

He had the decency to look chastised. "I guess the records led you to my phone call with Nigel."

"Not the content, obviously, but the fact he'd called you, yes."

"Where'd you go from there?"

"I checked your travel records from the end of August last year, discovered you'd flown from Dulles to London on the twelfth of September. Then, I checked Nigel's records, discovered _he'd_ flown from Moscow to London on the same day."

"Could've been a coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences, Mister Cooper. In my experience, what looks like a coincidence is usually an enemy plan in disguise."

His brows shot up. "So, I'm the enemy now?"

"Not so far, no. And if you're as smart as various people tell me you are, you'll take steps to keep it that way."

"Maybe Nigel and I were just meeting up for a beer."

"Nobody in their right mind makes a six thousand mile round trip just to meet up for a beer. Not even when the person they're buying it for is someone who once saved their life."

He smiled slightly. "Fair point, yeah."

"Also, you didn't tell anyone from work. In fact, I'd go so far as to say you went out of your way to keep your trip very much to yourself. You flew out late on Friday night, flew home on Sunday afternoon, and according to what your co-workers remember, turned up at work on Monday morning as if you'd spent the weekend on the couch, watching Disney cartoons with your kids."

The challenging tone came out again. "There's no Company rule that says I have to tell my co-workers what I do with my personal hours."

"Of course there isn't. But you didn't keep the trip to yourself because you're a private person." Which, by all accounts, he was—beyond the basics, nobody at Langley seemed to know a great deal about him. "You kept it to yourself because you didn't want anyone here to know where you'd been."

"Still not a crime."

"But it _is_ suspicious," she said. "Suspicious enough to make me contact the MI6 Station Chief in Moscow to make further enquiries." She flashed him her iciest smile. "Imagine _my_ surprise when he told me he didn't know Nigel was meeting with you either. That he'd simply asked Nigel to go to London to attend a briefing at Vauxhall Cross. Imagine _his_ surprise when I asked him if he'd ever heard of a man called Kirill Orlov."

"That's where you got the stack of photos," Cooper said, sighing.

"Let's just say that, unlike you, Adam Harper was _delighted_ to help."

"You can’t prove we talked about Kirill."

She felt her patience beginning to fray. "Mister Cooper, are you _really_ trying to worm out of this, when not ten minutes ago, you admitted your guilt?"

Now, it was him who flashed the cold smile. "I'm not trying to worm out of anything, Miss Landy. I'm just pointing out that if push comes to shove, there are things you can prove, and things you can't. If you're not willing to be reasonable, and you're just going to throw the book at me, you better be _damn_ sure you can prove Nigel and I met to talk about Kirill."

She turned to grab another folder from the table behind her. If he thought he could catch her out with fine print and technicalities, he was in for a shock. She'd been in this business much longer than him, knew never to make a move without the hard data or photos to back her up. "You'll be pleased to know the manager of the Millennium Hotel was just as cooperative as Adam Harper." She turned back, holding three pieces of paper. "Through the British Police and MI6, she provided the CCTV footage from the hotel lobby, which covers the entrance to the Pine Bar." She laid a black and white photo on the desk. "This is you going into the bar at seven o'clock on the twelfth of September. You can clearly see you're empty-handed." Another photo went down. "This is you going back to your room at nine o'clock, with a folder of documents in your hand." A piece of paper. "This is the bill for your stay, including the drinks you and Nigel had in the bar, and what you used from the mini-bar back in your room." She smirked. "Bill like that, it must've been a _hell_ of a night. But it's not every day you find out the twin brother you thought you was dead is actually alive and well, and working for a hostile intelligence service. I can understand why you wanted to drown your troubles."

"Didn't drown them so much as tie them down and waterboard them," he muttered. He rubbed his temples, trying to massage his problems away.

"A word of advice, Mister Cooper. From one former covert officer to another. If you want to keep a meeting black, don't meet in the bar of an upscale hotel, and pay for everything with cash."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"So, do you believe me now when I say I'm sure I can persuade the OIG to throw the book at you?"

He nodded. "Do you believe me now when I say I didn't know about Kirill until last September?"

"I do, yes."

He hesitated, then said, "Does that mean you're not going to report me?"

"Unfortunately, no. I still have to decide if I'm satisfied as to why you withheld the information."

"I explained that already."

"You did, yes. But however good your reason was doesn't change the fact you broke Company rules."

Another pause. "So, what happens next?"

This was the moment she needed.

"That depends. How helpful are you feeling?" she asked.

"That also depends. Who do you need me to help?"

"Me."

He rolled his eyes. "I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Is that how this works?"

"I prefer to think of it as a mutually beneficial arrangement." She gathered the two folders together, placing the photos from the hotel on top. "At the moment, nobody else in the Company knows about your meeting in London with Nigel. You help me with my problem, I'll make sure that doesn't change, and the evidence I gathered while investigating your actions will go in the nearest document shredder. I can't hide that Kirill's alive, of course, we're too far down the road for that, but I _can_ hide the fact you've known that since September. We'll pretend I told you, and that this meeting was where and when you found out. Does that sound reasonable?"

"Extremely. But what do you need me to do in return?"

Her instinct was to go straight for the kill, tell him exactly what he needed to do, and more importantly, by when he needed to do it. But he might be more inclined to help if he knew the history of the situation. Not the _full_ history, of course. She had no intention of telling him about Treadstone or Bourne.

"What do you know about my recent trip to Berlin and Moscow?" she asked.

"Only what's been going round the office. An op went wrong, left you with a hell of a mess." In a more cautious tone, he added, "A mess a lot of people are guessing Ward Abbott was somehow involved in."

"What makes them think that?"

"He blew his brains out in a hotel room in Berlin. Hardly the actions of an innocent man."

She'd tried to keep the manner of Abbott's death under wraps, if only for the sake of his kids, but she should have known better than to think something as scandalous as a suicide would never get out. "I can't tell you what he did, and I won't speak to the manner of his death, but you're right. We _did_ have an op go wrong, and it _did_ leave a hell of a mess. An extremely expensive, extremely embarrassing mess that everyone on the seventh floor would like to sweep under the rug."

"Are they setting you up to take the blame?"

That was a bold question to ask. Bordering on impudent.

"They're trying to." In her firmest tone, she added, "But I don't intend to allow that to happen."

"What's your plan?"

"I have one card left to play. Unfortunately, it absolutely refuses to let me play it."

"What kind of card are we talking about?"

"Not so much a _what_ as a _who_."

His brows shot up. "Your card is a _person_?"

"Yes."

A stubborn, vicious, foul-mouthed, arrogant, two-faced monster, but in the eyes of the law, still a person.

"You want them to play ball, and you think I can convince them?" he asked.

She nodded. "If the person in question cooperates, they could provide enough information about what happened in Berlin and Moscow to pull me out of the fire. Which in turn pulls _you_ out of the fire."

"The person must know a lot."

"Not a massive amount, but enough to give me a win, help me fix up some of the damage."

"Am I allowed to know who this person is?"

"Of course you are." Time for the next revelation. Heart pounding, she laid a hand on the folders. "It's your twin brother, Mister Cooper."

He froze in his seat. " _Kirill_?"

"Yes."

"You have him in custody?"

"We do."

"Where?"

"He's in a secure facility out near Dulles."

His eyes went wide. "He's _here_? In the States?"

"Since just before Christmas."

Cooper leaned back in his chair, face pale, expression taut, running a hand across his mouth, struggling to absorb what must be extremely upsetting news. He cleared his throat, and said, "You said the thing Kirill did that brought him to your attention wasn't good. If you're holding him in a secure facility, I assume that means he's in some kind of trouble?"

"Even more so than you. He's wanted on various charges, in both Germany and Russia."

"What kind of charges?"

"The kind that could send him to Stammheim for the rest of his life. Or, if the Germans decide they don't want to keep him, back to Moscow and Lefortovo instead." In her opinion, a sentence he _absolutely_ deserved. However useful Orlov might yet prove to be, he'd murdered four innocent people, including two members of the Company's Berlin team. But for the fact she needed his help, she would let the Germans or Russians have him.

Cooper fell silent, chin down, eyes unfocused, thinking again. One knee started to bounce.

She sat back, happy to wait him out. She'd just given him enough information to keep his brain busy for the next hour.

Eventually, he came back to say, "I have a question, but you might not be able to tell me the answer."

She shrugged. "Ask anyway."

He took a deep breath. "Are the charges Kirill is facing connected to the work he was doing for Yuri Gretkov?"

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. If Cooper knew about Abbott and Gretkov, did he know about Treadstone as well? Officially, he shouldn't, given his security rating. Unofficially was a whole 'nother matter. But how the _hell_ could she even find out without alerting him to Treadstone's existence?

"You know who Yuri Gretkov is?" she asked, hoping she sounded more serene than she felt.

"He's the CEO of Pekos Oil. A billionaire several times over, but _not_ one of Putin's cronies."

"And how did you know Kirill was working for him?"

"Nigel told me."

"What exactly did Nigel say?"

"Only that Kirill was working for Gretkov on FSB orders, officially to protect him, but more likely to report back on what Gretkov was doing. When Nigel's boss got wind of the guard dog assignment, he asked Nigel to check Kirill out."

Two puzzle pieces slotted together. "So, Kirill was the _specific_ focus of Nigel's surveillance operation? Not just someone who happened to get in his way while he was looking for other angles?"

"Yes."

"Did Nigel tell you anything else?"

"One other thing." Cooper's expression turned grave. "I would say you're not gonna like it, but given how high up the food chain you are, I suspect you might have heard it already."

"Tell me."

"How familiar are you with Yuri Gretkov's story?"

"Extremely."

"So, you know he bought his start-up stake in Pekos for twenty million in cash?"

"Yes?"

"And that nobody's ever been able to figure out where he got that seed money from?"

Her stomach heaved. This was going somewhere she didn't want him to go. "Yes?"

He paused, frowning, tapping a finger on the arm of his chair, perhaps wondering if what he was about to tell her would endanger his _life_ , never mind his career. "Nigel told me there was a rumour going around Moscow that the money actually came from the CIA."

In the calmest voice she could summon, she said, "What if I told you the rumours were true?"

"It was Ward Abbott, wasn't it?" he said, joining another two pieces. "He gave Yuri Gretkov the money. And he shot himself when you figured it out."

"Perhaps."

"Where'd Abbott get the money from?"

"He stole it, but from where is none of your concern." She held up a hand. "And I'm not saying that to shut you out, Mister Cooper. I'm saying that to protect you. What you don't know can't be used against you later." Treadstone had already claimed enough lives—it didn't need to claim his as well.

He smirked. "Now, you sound like my wife."

"Your wife's a smart woman. Trust me when I say, it's for the best if you don't know the whole story."

"I understand that, but I think you're forgetting something."

"What's that?"

"If _you_ don't tell me, Kirill will."

"He doesn't know the whole story, either."

"Are you sure about that?"

Sadly, she wasn't. So far, Orlov hadn't said much that wasn't an insult, a threat or a demand to be given a lawyer, but he _had_ told everyone who would listen that they'd grabbed the wrong man, that he'd only ever been a lowly foot soldier, so knew nothing about the Gretkov affair. There was a chance he was telling the truth, but given what kind of background he had, he was almost certainly lying, either to protect his employers, or more likely, to protect himself.

If Cooper was going to learn the whole story, she would much rather he learned it from her instead of his devious, truth-skewing twin. Which meant, however much it went against her secret-keeping instincts, it was time to open up and share.

"The Berlin operation, the one that went wrong, that was to purchase information that would have told us who stole twenty million dollars from us eight years ago."

"That's the money Abbott stole, right?"

She nodded. "When Abbott realized we were close to the truth, he decided it was time to clean house. He warned Gretkov, and Gretkov sent someone to sabotage the handover meeting."

"Lemme guess. The someone was Kirill."

"Yes."

Stony-faced, he asked, "How bad?"

"He killed the Russian source, plus two officers from the Berlin station, then stole the files we were trying to buy along with the money we were using to buy it."

"How much?"

"Five million dollars."

"Jesus," he muttered, massaging his temples again. "What did he do with the money?"

"He took his share, which he then spent"—on hookers and vodka, by all accounts—"but left most of it with Yuri Gretkov. The FSB confiscated what was left when they raided Gretkov's house."

"And the files?"

"He says he left them with Gretkov as well. But the FSB says it's found no trace of them."

Cooper snorted. "They'll be going through them at the Lubyanka."

"With a fine-toothed comb."

"Now I understand why our higher-ups are so pissed. Not every day the FSB gets its hands on concrete evidence of CIA corruption in Russia."

"CIA corruption which involved a Russian oligarch and his pet FSB agent," she reminded him. "It might not be our finest hour, but it's not covering them in glory, either."

"Which means some of their higher-ups will be even more pissed than ours."

She nodded. "And theirs have to answer to Putin." A duty she didn't envy.

"If you send him back to Moscow, they'll kill him."

"You mean Kirill?"

"Yes."

"Of course they will. Not officially, though. And certainly not as punishment for killing our people."

"For being caught. And for embarrassing them." His shoulders heaved as he blew out a sigh. "And not officially, no. Quietly, in a room in the basement, with a bullet behind the right ear."

The way he said it made her wonder—was that something he'd done to someone himself? Were the rumours she'd heard about his new role more true than she cared to imagine?

"Exactly."

"What about Gretkov?" he asked. "You think they'll want to eliminate him as well?"

"They're holding him on numerous charges, making plans to bring him to trial, but I think once they realize how deep the mess runs, they might decide getting rid of him is the easier option." She shrugged. "Dead mean don't own assets. If they get rid of him, they finally have a good reason to bring Pekos under the Kremlin's control."

"We hang the petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to public office," he murmured.

One of her favourite Aesop quotes. "Exactly."

"Does Kirill know how much trouble he and Gretkov are in?"

"We've told him everything. We're even giving him The Moscow Times, so he can follow the local reporting from here."

"And he understands he'll be arrested if he ever returns to Russia?"

"Mister Cooper, believe me when I say, we've made it _abundantly_ clear he has no future in Moscow."

He flapped his hands. "So, why's he not cooperating?"

"He's your twin brother. You tell me."

"Yeah, except I haven't seen him since we were _ten_. The Kirill you're holding out at Dulles will be a stranger to me almost as much as to you."

"You might be a stranger, but you're also his identical twin. And his older identical twin, at that. I was hoping that means he'll be inclined to defer to you, to treat you as an authority figure, do whatever you ask him to do."

Cooper actually grinned. "Miss Landy, I'm hard-pushed to remember a _single_ moment from our childhood when Kirill did what I asked him to do. He was… immovable." His grin faded into a mournful sigh. "Doesn't sound like that part of him's changed." He fixed his gaze on the floor, brows pulling together, perhaps thinking about what other parts had.

"Do you think you can reconnect with him?" she asked. "Persuade him to talk, work with us, do the right thing?"

"I honestly don't know. I'll try, but it's really out of my hands. I can't force him to feel something he doesn't want to feel."

Or, even worse, was no longer capable of feeling.

"Keep in mind he's probably scared of what cooperating with us means. He was born in Berlin, and had an American mother, but he's lived in Moscow since he was ten, so he's socially and culturally Russian. He doesn't _want_ to live here. He probably thinks if he doesn't talk, the FSB will forget and forgive, and allow him to pick up his life where he left off. He knows if he works with us, the FSB will brand him a traitor, and he'll never set foot in Russia again. We can give him a completely new life, but to some extent, he'll always be a stranger in a strange land."

Very quietly, Cooper said, "I can give him something familiar. A reason to want to stay. To not care if he can't go back to Russia."

And she hadn't even had to lead him to water.

"That's what I was hoping for, yes."

"When can I see him?" he asked.

She couldn't think of a reason to hold him back. A psychologist might recommend a softly-softly approach, that they implement the fraternal reunion in supervised, carefully planned out steps. But she was a spy, not a shrink. And a spy on the verge of losing her job, at that. The sooner Cooper saw his twin brother, the sooner she would find out where she stood, if bringing Orlov back to the States had been a sensible move, or a massive waste of everyone's time.

She looked at her watch. "If we leave now, we can be there in thirty to forty minutes."

"That's _it_?" he asked, brows climbing again. "You just take me there, introduce us and leave us to it?"

"What else do you think we should do?"

"You don't need me to go through some kind of briefing, or fill out any paperwork first?"

"No paperwork, and this is your briefing." She gestured at the card fastened to his breast pocket. "You'll need to bring your employee ID and your driver's license to prove who you are, but yeah, that's basically it."

Nodding, he took a deep breath. "Okay, let's do this then."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

She grabbed her phone to send Tom Cronin a text. _Cooper's on board. Going today. Might need your help_.

Message sent, she set the phone aside. "Before we go any further, you should know exactly what to expect."

He grunted. " _Now_ , the warning?"

"It's not a warning. It's just some advice."

He waved her off. "He's gonna be aggressive and uncooperative. He might tell me to fuck off and never darken his doorstep again. He might threaten to kill me. He might actually _try_ to kill me. He might claim he doesn't remember me. He might actually _not_ remember me." The smile he gave her was flat. "I've had four months to think about this from every possible angle, so whatever scenario you can think up for how our reunion goes down, I've already played it out in my head. I'm ready for whatever happens." His expression softened. "Trust me. I'll be okay."

"It's not just how Kirill might react. There's something else."

"What?"

Now for the second punch.

"When Kirill sabotaged our handover meeting, he also planted some evidence that pinned the blame on another man." She paused, scanning his face, but saw no sign he understood what she meant. Good. The fewer people who knew who Jason Bourne was, the better. "Kirill then tried to kill the other man, to close the loop and trim the loose threads."

"And?"

"He failed." Ironically, Orlov's only failure in an otherwise highly successful career. If you could call the work he'd done a career. "I can't tell you who the other man was, or what he then did, but I can tell you he and your brother came to blows again in Moscow, and that it didn't end well for Kirill."

Cooper was silent for a few moments, then said, "This other man. The one in Moscow. The one Kirill tried to kill." He paused. "By, uh, by any chance, was his last name Bourne?"

She jerked as if she'd been punched.

"I'm guessing from your reaction that the answer's yes," Cooper drily said.

"Where the _hell_ did you hear that name?"

"It's being whispered in some quiet corners in connection with Ward Abbott's death."

Which meant somebody on her task force had talked. No, not talked. _Blabbed_. For all that she'd tried to keep it a secret, the where and how of Ward Abbott's death wasn't a confidential matter. But Jason Bourne was. And not just any level of confidential—as confidential as CIA matters came. For Cooper to have heard the name through something as simple as office gossip meant somebody, somewhere had _really_ fucked up.

She fully intended to find the source of the leak, as soon as her business with Orlov was done.

"What else do you know?"

"That's all. I promise."

She had another decision to make. She weighed her options, made it quickly.

"Mister Cooper, I'll explain who Jason Bourne is, but only because it may help you reconcile with your brother. Under no circumstances should you _ever_ discuss what I'm about to tell you with anyone other than him. Not your co-workers. Not your wife. Not your therapist. Not your barber. Not even your _dog_. Do you understand?" she asked, using her bluntest, most no-nonsense tone.

He nodded, but frowned. "Of course. But if it's that confidential, shouldn't I be signing a form? An I-220 or P-46?"

"You should, yes. But the form would have to be logged, and I'd rather keep this between ourselves." She smirked. "Can you live with breaking the rules again?"

"I think I'll survive."

She took a moment to figure out where to start. "Jason Bourne is a CIA operative."

That got his attention. "He works for _us_?"

"He _worked_ for us. Past tense. Two years ago, he disappeared, completely abandoned his post. We assumed he'd turned against us, but we now believe he had an accident that caused psychogenic amnesia." Or rather, it was what _she_ now believed. Some of the people above her still weren't convinced.

"He abandoned his post because he didn't remember who he was supposed to be."

"Unsurprisingly, when he found out, he didn't want to go back to being a CIA-controlled assassin."

"Who was controlling him?"

"Several people. But the buck essentially stopped with Abbott."

"So, when Kirill pinned the blame for the handover sabotage on Bourne, it was really Abbott killing two birds with one stone."

"Exactly."

He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. "It would've worked. If Kirill had killed this Bourne guy, I mean."

"Perfectly. Nobody would've been any the wiser."

Abbott had always been good at that—using one project's resources to mop up the charred remains of another. But she'd only ever see him do it with legal, on-the-books work. The methods he'd used to clean up Treadstone were as illegal as CIA methods came.

"What went wrong?"

"Abbott underestimated Bourne. And ultimately, so did your brother." She shrugged. "But he shouldn't feel too bad about that. Jason Bourne was no ordinary CIA asset. It's not an exaggeration to say, he was one of the most skilled, most capable assets any CIA program has _ever_ produced."

"What program was it?"

"I'm not telling you that." She remembered something else from his file. "Let's just say it made Michael Kordesky's hand-to-hand course look like a walk in the park."

"So, Kirill couldn't take him. This Bourne guy, I mean."

"He came very close. Closer than any other person before him or since. But he still failed. And he's paying a terrible price for his failure."

Hazel eyes widened. "What kind of price?"

"Mostly, a physical one. In the process of trying to kill Bourne, Kirill lost control of his car, smashed it into the wall of a tunnel. His injuries were extremely traumatic." She had photos of that moment as well, courtesy of a ghoulish onlooker who'd assumed the guy in the G-Class was dead. But, unlike the images from the hotel, _those_ photos, she wouldn't share.

"How bad are we talking?"

"Broken ribs, fractured cheekbone, a ruptured spleen, crush injuries to his right arm and leg. A compound fracture of the skull that needed surgical intervention to fix, and may or may not leave some minor neurological damage."

"But he's conscious and able to speak?"

Assuming threats and cursing counted as speaking. "He tires easily, but yes."

"Does he remember who he is?"

"He's fuzzy on some recent events, especially those right after the crash, but his long-term memory and sense of identity seem to be intact."

Cooper smirked.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"Just remembering the time he broke his arm as a kid. If he's whining about his current injuries now as much as he did about his arm back then, he'll end up making the nurses hate him."

"He's already making the nurses hate him," she said. "And not because of his injuries."

"Being rude and uncooperative?"

"That's putting it mildly. Last time I saw him, he used the c-word to greet me."

He had the decency to wince. "Can he walk?"

"Not at the moment, no. The crush injuries were so bad, his right leg can't bear the weight. He won't be able to walk again until he's had some pins put in to hold it together."

"That sounds pretty bad."

"The doctor who treated him for us in Moscow told us she'd never seen anything like it. She couldn't understand how a human body could take that much punishment and survive. Said if she'd been at the scene, she would have tagged him and left him for dead."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, massaging his face with his hands. "I think that's because he used to be special forces," he said.

"Who, Kirill?"

"Yes."

"How do you know that?"

"It was in the folder Nigel gave me. As well as the photos, he'd been able to obtain an extract of Kirill's service record."

Which meant Nigel had developed a source at the Russian Ministry of Defense. No mean feat, given the level of scrutiny most Ministry employees were under. She made a mental note to share that information with the head of the Russia Desk later.

"He has what looks like a regimental symbol tattooed on his upper left arm, so we suspected he was ex-military, but we haven't been able to find him in any records, and he refuses to tell us which branch he was in, or where and when he served. If he _was_ Spetsnaz, that could certainly explain why he survived the crash. His body will be used to dealing with trauma and pain."

Cooper sat up, but folded his arms and kept his eyes down, focused on some point on the floor. She recognized a defensive posture when she saw it. He was about to tell her something he thought he shouldn't tell her. Or worse, something he knew he should have told her already.

"There's more to it than that," he admitted.

"More to what than what?"

"More to Kirill's time in service than saying he was special forces."

"How so?"

He raised his head to meet her gaze. "Nigel's summary says he was Spetsnaz GRU."

"GRU?" she repeated. The _Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije_ , the foreign intelligence arm of the Russian Armed Forces. This was a revelation she could _really_ work with. "He worked under military intelligence, then?"

He nodded. "And after that, he worked at Yasenevo."

A ripple of shock ran up her spine. The GRU thing was good—this was even better. "How long?"

"Five years. Including a year-long stint in Zaslon."

Jesus Christ. This was like Christmas, Thanksgiving, her birthday, every payday and winning the lottery all rolled in together. With that kind of service under his belt, Orlov could be more valuable than any of them had _ever_ imagined. If she could persuade him to talk, he might be able to spill all kinds of remarkable secrets. Like the location of that SVR safehouse, for one. They knew it was somewhere inside the 495, but hadn't as yet been able to pin it down. If Orlov could give her that, she might be able to begin to forgive him.

"You _do_ realize how valuable this could make him?" she asked.

Another nod. "Which means there's even more riding on what happens next."

"You _have_ to win him over. For his sake as much as your own."

"Does he know he's been brought to the States?"

"We haven't explicitly told him"—mostly because his removal from Russia hadn't been entirely legal under the terms of the Geneva Convention—"but he knows I'm with the CIA, and given what accents everyone at the facility has, I'm sure he's long since figured it out."

"If he thinks he's still somewhere in Europe, that could be why he's not playing ball."

"How so?"

"He's former Spetsnaz. If he's anything like the Delta and Recon guys I know here, he'll have contacts and hiding holes all over the place. He could be biding his time, waiting for the right moment to put his exit plan into action."

"Exit plan?"

"Exit plan, yeah. The plan you'd follow in the event the government decided you were public enemy number one." He shrugged. "A lot of people in this business have one."

She'd heard of exit plans, of course—what respectable counter-intelligence officer hadn't—but had assumed they were just colourful stories created by people with overactive imaginations, or who'd read one too many conspiracy theory.

Apparently not.

"Do _you_ have an exit plan, Mister Cooper?"

He flashed her the blandest of smiles. "Maybe. But if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

Where would he try to run to, that he could take a wife and two kids with him? South America? Asia? Africa? The Middle East? Probably not Eastern Europe.

Not that it mattered. He wasn't running, and neither was his twin brother.

"Exit plan or not, your brother's not leaving our custody anytime soon. Not with his leg in the condition it's in."

"Never say never," he warned. "When we were kids, Kirill was tenacious as hell. When he wanted something, he usually figured out how to get it, and God help the idiot who got in his way."

She'd seen that doggedness firsthand, in a series of increasingly unproductive exchanges. And she doubted Orlov was the only sibling who had it. Going on what his bosses had put in his file, Cooper could be pretty persistent himself.

He sighed as he sat back in his seat, shoulders slumping, expression haggard. He looked and sounded exhausted.

"You sure you want to see him today?" she asked. "You’ve waited almost twenty-eight years. Another day or two won't do any harm."

He nodded. "Not sure I can take the pressure of waiting. If he wants nothing to do with me, I'd rather find out sooner than later. There's no point in putting this off. It's been long enough."

She grabbed the files and photos to lock them back in her drawer.

"How do we do this?" he asked.

"You drove to work?"

Another nod. "I'm parked out in the main lot."

"Then, we'll go in your car. You drive, I'll give you directions. I'll have someone from my team follow us in their vehicle. They can bring me back here when I'm done, you can stay on as long as you need."

Assuming Orlov reacted in a way that meant there was something worth him staying on for…

"That's allowed? I don't always have to have someone with me?"

She shook her head. "When we go in, I'll add your name to the access list at the desk. Once that's done, you'll be able to visit whenever you want, even if I'm not there."

"Might not need it. He might tell me he wants nothing to do with me."

"Or, he might hug you and burst into tears."

Cooper snorted. "Let’s not put any money on that."

She couldn't see it happening, either. At least, not to the Russian. She was fairly sure Cooper would shed some tears by the end of the meeting. Whether from anger, happiness or sorrow remained to be seen.

She rose from her seat, going to the rack to grab her handbag and coat.

"Why don't we go find out?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twenty-eight years after they last saw each other, William and Kirill are reunited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not good at writing emotions - apologies in advance if this doesn't quite meet your angst expectations.

"That's gotta be the ugliest building I've ever seen," Cooper told her as he pulled up to the gate.

'Ugly' didn't quite cover it. Between the neglected lawn, the filthy windows, the boxy, brutalist, concrete façade, the six foot, razor wire-topped fence, the cameras every twenty feet, the armed, unsmiling guard at the gate and the signs in both English and Spanish warning trespassers would be arrested, it was one of the most disagreeable buildings the Company owned. It made the original building at Langley look like a high-end Hilton resort on Maui.

"It's a secret CIA medical facility," she said. "It doesn't have to be pretty. If it was pretty, people might want to know what it was."

He rolled down the window as the gate guard approached, reaching out to take her credentials and combine them with his. "We're here to see one of the guests," Cooper told the young man, handing the stack of documents over.

The guard was thorough, going through the documents one at a time, holding up each piece of ID to compare the photo to the physical person. He examined their Langley IDs, running his finger along the edge, probably looking for signs they were fakes. Job done, he gave them a tight-lipped smile. "Please proceed to the visitor car park in front of the main building, park in row B or C only."

Cooper nodded and took their documents back. "Row B or C, thanks."

The guard stepped back to his booth. A few seconds later, the steel bollards sank into the pavement.

Cooper handed her documents back, dropped his own in his lap, wound up the window and put his foot on the gas. He drove to row B, crawled down it until he found a space, then carefully swung his car in. He killed the engine and pulled on a brake.

He jammed his license back in his wallet and re-attached his Langley ID to his breast pocket. "Surprised that's all we needed to do to get in," he said. "Given what this building's being used for, I expected the process to be more thorough than that."

"Your badge will get you through the gate, but it won't get you into the building, or the wing where your brother's being held."

"I assume you have something that will?"

She patted her jacket pocket. "An extra security pass. Once we're inside, I'll have the security team make one up for you."

He ducked his head to look at the building through the passenger window. "Other than Kirill, how many people are here?"

"Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Just curious."

"Don't be," she warned. "The only thing you need to know about this building is how to get here, and that your brother's in it."

He reached to open his door.

Her hand shot out to grab his right arm. "Before we go in, there are some things we need to discuss."

"Didn't we talked about this already?" he countered, pulling his hand back into his lap.

"We talked about Kirill's condition, and how he might react. We also need to review the rules for how you behave once you're inside."

He touched his hand to his chest. "How _I_ behave?"

"How _you_ behave, yes."

He turned towards her in his seat. "Such as?"

"This is a hospital, but it's also a high-security prison," she started.

"Which means Kirill's a prisoner as much as he is a patient."

"Which means under _no_ circumstances do you provide him with any kind of assistance you haven't been cleared to provide," she added. "You don't let him use your phone. You don't make or receive phone calls for him. You don't send or receive emails, letters or text messages for him. You don't visit someone on his behalf or allow someone to come to your house. You don't give him money or a card with a payment function. You don't do _anything_ that could be construed as helping him to initiate contact with someone outside. If he asks you to help him in that way, you report it to me or somebody on my team, no matter how harmless the request seems. Is that clear?"

"Crystal."

"There's a metal detector at the entrance, so don't even _think_ about bringing your gun. Leave it at the office, or if that's not an option, lock it up in your trunk. Other than your own phone, which you don't let him use, absolutely no tech. No laptops, no tablets, no e-Readers, no pagers, no RSA fobs, no USB sticks. Not even an old iPod with music loaded on it. For now, no outside food, drink or medication. We might relax that restriction later."

"I'll tell Mike to hold off baking a cake."

Mike. That must be his wife. "We usually say nothing that could be used as a weapon, but given the training your brother's received, that could be a whole range of things, so I'll just say nothing obviously weaponizable instead. Take off your tie and your belt. Leave any pens, penknives and non-essential keys in the car."

He started to undo his tie. "If this works out, and I come to see him on a regular basis, will I be able to bring things from home? Stuff that might make his stay a little more pleasant?"

"Yes, but you'll have to clear them with security first. Clothes and non-lacing shoes are fine. Books, magazines and CDs as well, as long as there's no adult or radical content." She smirked. "Don't end up having your access rights revoked because you tried to bring him some porn."

"Not really my thing, so no fear of that."

"You understand why we have these rules, right?"

He nodded. "It's to make sure I don't provide him with a means of escape." He stuck his tie in the door pocket.

"Exactly. Because if you _do_ help him to escape, even accidentally, you'll need that exit plan you mentioned. Once we find him and bring him back, there'll be no second chances. _He'll_ end up on a plane to Demodedovo, and _you'll_ end up in Terre Haute. You understand?"

"I understand."

She checked her watch; it was quarter to three. Plenty of time to deal with the visit before the nurses' shift change at six. "You still sure you want to do this?" she asked.

He frowned. "Absolutely. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because if you do this, you'll have to be ready for whatever happens, even if it's the worst possible outcome."

"You mean the two of us hating each other and me walking away?"

"Something even worse than that."

He snorted. "What the hell could happen that's worse than _that_?"

"You could go through with this, have a successful reunion with Kirill, then, four or five months from now, lose him all over again."

"Why would I lose him all over again?"

"Because of what he did in Berlin."

Sighing, he slumped back in his seat. "The two CIA officers, right."

"Those officers had friends at Langley. Some of whom know Kirill killed them, and want Kirill punished for what he did."

"They want to send him back to Russia."

"Can you blame them?"

 _She_ couldn't. In their shoes, she'd want the Russian strung up by his toes and left to die a long, slow, painful death.

"Course I can't. But like we discussed earlier, if we send Kirill back to Moscow, the Kremlin won't just punish him."

"They'll execute him. He'll die. For real this time, not just on paper. And there'll be _nothing_ you or your wife can do to stop it. If you can't handle that outcome, you should turn around and drive away now, forget everything I've told you and pretend none of this ever happened."

"I can handle it."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded. "I know it's going to be tough, but us Coopers are made of tough stuff. And I've been waiting for this for twenty-eight years. I have questions about my family that nobody has ever been able to answer. If I walk away now, they stay unanswered."

"You mean, why your father left?"

"Why he left, why he took Kirill with him, why he took Kirill instead of me, where he went, why he never came back, if he's dead or alive. Kirill's the _only_ person in the whole word who can give me the answers. I need to see him one more time, even if it's just for an hour. If this goes bad, and we walk away from each other, or we reconcile, but he still ends up being sent back to Moscow and executed for treason, that'll be hard, don't get me wrong, but at least I'll finally know what happened. I'll be able to leave the past in the past."

She thought of Bourne, still trying to uncover his past, still looking for answers to his own questions.

"You should know, one of the officers Kirill killed, a guy by the name of Daniel Manning, his Langley friend is on the sixth floor."

Cooper grunted. "So, a friend with the Director's ear. Great."

"If this works out, and you decide to stand with your brother, and argue for him to stay in the States, that friend will make your life hell. As well as fighting to have Kirill deported, he'll do whatever he can to undermine you and wreck your career."

He flashed a cynical smile. "By any chance, is the friend in question everyone's favourite IA director?"

"You won't mind if I plead the fifth on that one."

The same outcome as telling him 'yes', but without the risk of actually naming names.

"I've butted heads with Arthur before," he said. "Whatever he's planning, I can take it."

"You sure?"

"I like my job, but I'm starting to realize it's just a job. If the CIA decides I need to choose between my job and my brother, I'll pack up my stuff and go find another."

"You'd give up your career for your brother? Even knowing what he's done and what kind of person he is?"

His tone was pure steel. "If that's what it takes to keep him safe, yes."

She wasn't sure she would do that for her own brother, but maybe it was different with twins.

"What about you?" he asked. "If you argue for Kirill to stay in the States because of what he could bring to the table, won't that make you a target as well?"

"Probably."

"Aren't you worried?"

"I've had a red dot on my chest since everything went wrong in Berlin, so not really, no. It's not the first time I've had to retreat and go into survival mode. I'm sure it won't be the last."

He snorted. "Survival mode. Jesus. That's a healthy perspective."

"Says the man with the exit plan."

That got her the slightest of grins.

Outside, light snow started to fall. A car crept down the next row over. Probably Tom, following her instructions to come in the gate ten minutes behind them.

"You ready?" she asked.

He nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"You understand what you have to do? That this isn't just a family moment, and there's a business problem to solve here as well? That you need to persuade Kirill to work with us, and tell us everything he knows? That cooperation is literally the _only_ way he gets out of this mess with his life and limbs intact?"

"I understand." The steel tone returned. "And I give you my word I'll do what I can."

She pulled her door handle. "Then, let's go see what he has to say."

 

Ten minutes later, they were leaving the security office, him with a new access pass in his hand.

"That was easier than I expected," he said.

"No reason to make it complicated. If I have a pass, and I vouch for you, you can automatically have one as well." They came to a door, she gestured for him to try his new card. He waved it over the panel. Two seconds later, the lock snicked and the access light turned from red to green. He pulled the door open, waving her through.

She smiled as she walked to the nurses' station. "Good afternoon, ladies. How's everyone doing today?"

The head nurse on duty—Aisha—smiled as she turned to greet her guests. As she saw William, her expression turned from welcome to horror. She lurched to the wall, reaching for the emergency button.

Oh, _shit_.

"It's okay!" Pamela exclaimed, rushing to intercept Aisha's reach. "It's not him. It's not Orlov. You didn't mess up, he hasn't escaped."

Two more nurses rushed out of the storage room at the back, no doubt summoned by the raised voices.

"It's okay," Pamela repeated, positioning herself between the three nurses and Cooper, hands raised to warn them away, using her sternest, most confident tone. "This man is with me. I know he looks like him, but he is _not_ our guest in room eight. He's someone else."

"Jesus," Aisha muttered, cocking one hand on a hip and using the other to lean on the desk. "For a moment there, I thought we were screwed."

Pamela turned to beckon to Cooper. "Mister Cooper, this is Aisha, the head nurse for the day shift." She gestured to the other two women. "That's Carol and Rosa, most of the rest of Aisha's team." She pointed from the nurses back to Cooper. "Aisha, Carol, Rosa, this is William Cooper. He works with me. He's here to speak to our guest."

Aisha came forward, extending a hand. "Nice to meet you, Mister Cooper." She flashed a wry grin. "Sorry about that. You gave me a _hell_ of a fright."

Cooper took and shook the hand. "No problem. Nice to meet you, too."

"Please tell me there's a good reason why you look like our guest?"

"Very," Pamela interjected.

"It's a long story," Cooper added.

One he didn't have time to tell them right now.

"How's he doing today?" Pamela asked, gesturing to the reinforced door on the right.

Aisha snorted. "He didn't like what we served him for breakfast, so he's been even more pleasant and charming than usual. Gave Emma such a hard time he reduced her to tears."

"Emma?"

"The new girl," Aisha explained. "The pretty one with the blonde hair."

The kind one as well—far kinder than an asshole like Orlov deserved.

"Did he threaten to kill her again?"

Aisha shook her head. "Nastier than that. Sexual stuff." Her eyes flicked to William. "Things I don't want to repeat."

Pamela's blood was ready to boil; Orlov was an absolute _monster_. But the situation might be partly her fault. She'd decided who would be on the team—she should have known better than to give him such a young and appealing target. If the reunion didn't go well, and he continued to behave like a thug, she would swap Emma out with Margaret. Margaret had worked in three different high-security units. She would eat a nuisance like Orlov for breakfast and spit out what was left of his bones.

"Where's Emma now?"

Aisha jerked her chin at the door. "We sent her to B wing to help with the Serb."

"Who's the Serb?" Cooper predictably wanted to know.

"Someone you shouldn't concern yoursel with," she warned him. She turned back to Aisha. "We're not here for the Serb. Mister Cooper would like to talk to the Russian. Is he awake?"

"Should be." Aisha's expression turned dark. "If he isn't, feel free to wake him. Quick punch to the leg should do the trick nicely."

Pamela moved to the door that led to room eight. She waved her card against the panel, waited for the green light, and grabbed the handle to crack the door. "He's through here," she said to Cooper.

He nodded and took a deep breath, summoning every last ounce of mental and physical courage he had.

She waved him through, followed him in, then waited for the door to close over behind him. Another door lay ten feet in front.

She pointed ahead. "We call this the airlock, because you don't go through that door there until this one behind you is locked. Understand?"

He nodded. "You weren't kidding about the security. Would need to be Mister Fantastic or the Invisible Man to get out of here without a pass."

"We've learned the hard way there's no such thing as having too many locks."

"Oh?"

"I won't bore you with the details right now, but let's just say some of our guests have been _extremely_ creative."

She ushered him up to the second door. Unlike the last one, this one had a small window in it. "Your brother's room is the second door on the left." She pointed to a chair in the hall. "I'm going to sit there."

"You're not coming in with me?"

"The rules say I'm not supposed to leave you alone with a guest, but I'm sure you'll agree this is a moment you should have to yourselves." However the reunion worked out, it was going to be an emotional moment, perhaps (barring the birth of a child) the most emotional moment of their lives. She didn't want to see that moment any more than either man would want someone to see it. Privacy was what they needed. "I won't be able to see you, but I _will_ be able to hear you. Whatever you say, keep that in mind."

"Do you speak Russian?"

"A little bit, yes." She remembered where they'd been born. "And some German as well, from when I worked in Berlin, but not enough to carry a conversation."

He sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets. "So, this is finally it?"

"Not quite. I have to speak to him first, confirm he's willing to see someone else. He might be a prisoner, but there are still legal procedures to follow."

"Will you be safe?"

"Perfectly. He'll probably threaten to kill me again, but that's mostly hot air." At his startled look, she explained, "Your brother's a lot of things, Mister Cooper, but he isn't stupid. He knows if he lays so much as a finger on me, _or_ on one of the nurses, we'll clap him in irons and take him to a real prison. This place isn't the Ritz by any means, but it's not Lee or Hazleton, either." She waved her pass to open the door. "Wait here. I'll be right back."

She found Orlov propped up in bed, his healthy left leg bent at the knee, his mangled right leg stretched out flat. As always, she was glad he'd hidden it under the sheet—it wasn't a pretty sight to behold.

At the sound of her approach, he looked up from the book he was reading.

A sneering smile spread over his face. "Well, well, well. If it isn't my favourite CIA bitch."

"How are you feeling today?" she asked, trying to be the better and nicer person. Not that being a better and nicer person than Orlov took more than minimum effort.

"What the fuck do you care?"

"Are you up to receiving a guest?"

In a flash, his expression turned from hostile to wary. "That depends. What type of guest is it?"

"A man I work with. He wants to talk to you about your future."

And his past and present as well.

"Someone else from the CIA?"

"Yes." 

Orlov's face turned to stone; he waved her off and returned to his book. "Tell him to fuck off as well," he said in a flat voice. "Don't want to talk to you, don't want to talk to your CIA friend, don't want to talk to _anyone_ who is not from the Russian embassy or a lawyer. The sooner you get that through your stupid, ugly American skull, the easier all this will be."

"I think you'll want to talk to this man."

"I doubt it."

"Can I bring him in to meet you?"

Orlov huffed a put-upon sigh. "If you must."

"I'll be right back."

She jumped aside as he threw the book at her. "Go bring me a fucking lawyer!" he shouted. "I am a citizen of the Russian Federation! I have done nothing wrong. You have absolutely no right to hold me!"

She picked up the book to check out the cover. An English language translation of _Solaris_ by Stanislaw Lem. For an ex-assassin, an interesting choice.

"Give me that back," Orlov demanded.

Very deliberately, she laid the book on a shelf by the door.

He turned dagger eyes on her. "Fucking _whore_ ," he muttered.

She stepped out into the hall. Cooper was peering through the small window, shoulders hunched, mouth taut, brows wrinkled together. She forced herself to show a quick smile.

She stepped back into the airlock hall. "He's ready when you are," she said.

Cooper swallowed. "What did you tell him?"

"That I brought someone with me who wants to talk to him about his future."

He tried to laugh, but the sound caught in his throat. "That's, uh, that's one way to put it," he said hoarsely.

"You ready to do this?"

Tight-lipped, he nodded.

"I'll be in the hall. If you need me, just shout. I can have a SWAT team in the room within twenty seconds."

"Don't think it'll come to that."

"Never say never." She stepped out of his way. "Go on through. I'll give you a minute before I come in."

He nodded, swiped his card and pushed through the door. He stopped at the other side, standing tall as he took a deep breath, once, twice, three times. She could only imagine how fast his heart would be beating.

He strode to the door for room number eight, paused again, then walked right in.

She counted to sixty in her head, pushed through the door and tiptoed across to her chair. She didn't want Orlov to know she was there in case it altered how he reacted.

Quietly, she sank into her seat. She checked her watch, and tried not to listen.

Easier said than done.

In room eight, someone was talking in Russian. The voice was soft and low—too low to make out what it was saying—and she couldn't tell if it was Orlov or Cooper. Probably Cooper. Nothing about Orlov was soft.

The talking stopped. The only noise she could hear was the quiet hum of the lights.

She tensed as someone in the room let out a heart-rending sob. The second sob was even more anguished, the sound of a wounded animal, or of a soul being sundered in two. The third one was muffled, as if the person had covered their mouth with their hand.

The talking resumed, still in Russian, louder, more urgent, stumbling over words, the voice occasionally breaking. This time, she could hear enough to tell from the accent the talker was Cooper. Which meant the muffled, tortured sobs were coming from his twin brother.

Jesus _Christ_.

Kirill Orlov, the brutal, pitiless killer for hire, the man who'd spent most of his life up to his knees in carnage and blood, the man who'd murdered two CIA people as if he was merely swatting a fly, was crying like an abandoned child.

This was… Astonishing? Horrifying? Ridiculous? Amusing? She wasn't quite sure what word she should use.

A movement at the door caught her eyes. She couldn't see the two men—the bed was in the part of the room not visible from where her chair had been placed—but she could see their reflection in a storage cabinet door. She tried to keep her eyes down, to give the brothers the private space they deserved, but it was like trying not to look at the scene of a crime.

She couldn't believe what she was seeing; Cooper awkwardly perched on the bed, both arms wrapped around his brother, a hand holding the back of Orlov's head, rocking him very slightly, and Kirill Orlov, shoulders jerking in silent sobs, his face burrowed in Cooper's shoulder, his fists bunched in the sleeves of his brother's shirt, holding on for dear life.

She couldn't, _shouldn't_ , watch any more. She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her chin to her chest.

The sobbing stopped. Now, it was Orlov's turn to talk. Curiously, not in Russian, but in anxious, messy, rapid-fire German. She supposed that made sense. German represented the stable years of his life, the years when he'd had a loving father, mother and brother, and lived in a toy-filled home in Berlin. Russian was the language of chaos, violence and sorrow. And what did English represent? Unfortunately, her own command of German had faded too much to be of use, so, whatever Orlov was saying was for his brother's ears alone. She heard him say 'Viko', then something that made Cooper shush him.

Cooper responded in the same language. His tone was gentle and reassuring, as if he was calming a wounded bird. His voice broke as he said 'Kiryusha'. She remembered that—the name family members had used, a name he hadn't been able to say for almost twenty-eight years. Out in the hall, Pamela's heart quietly fractured as well. She wasn't sentimental by nature, but this was too much even for her.

A deep, shuddering, gulping breath, then total silence again.

Her head came up as calm footsteps padded towards her. A few seconds later, Cooper appeared at the door. He cleared his throat, hastily wiped his eyes and beckoned her into the room. "Kirill says he would like to see you."

She rose from the chair and followed him in.

One look at the Russian stopped her dead in her tracks. She'd seen him barely ten minutes ago; this couldn't _possibly_ be the same person. The vicious, surly defiance had vanished, leaving a crumpled, wretched shell of a man—a man whose world had just been turned on its head. His eyes were red and swollen from crying and his face was streaked with the remains of his tears. She almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

"You wanted to see me?" she said.

He nodded and cleared his throat. "I wanted to say that I am sorry," he whispered.

"For what?"

"Everything," was all he said. He bit his lip and dropped his chin to his chest, trying to hold the tears back.

"You'll work with us, tell us everything you know?"

He nodded.

"You acknowledge you're not being coerced, and acting of your own volition?" Maybe not entirely true—emotional coercion might count—but true enough in the eyes of the law to keep her bosses and the lawyers at the DoJ happy.

Another nod.

"I'm afraid I need a verbal answer."

He raised his eyes to meet her gaze, showing a brief flash of his former defiance. "I acknowledge I am not being coerced, and that I am acting of my own volition."

Five weeks of pent-up tension flooded away. After all the cursing and verbal abuse, all the colourful threats to maim and kill her, all the taunts about her two murdered colleagues, she finally had the answer she needed.

She looked to Cooper, standing next to the door. "This is all I need for now. There's no reason for me stay any longer. Unless there's something else I can help with, I'll leave you to it, head back to Langley from here."

"I'll check in with you tomorrow."

"There's no need for that," she told him. "The night you're about to have, you'll be in no state to work, so take tomorrow off, come back here instead, catch up with each other as much as you can."

He dipped his head. "Appreciate that, thank you."

"Make the most of it." She turned to address his brother. "I'll let you have a day with your brother, the lawyers will be here on Wednesday morning. They'll have some terms and conditions for you. If you want to stay in the States, I suggest you listen to what they have to say, and that you be polite and honest with them."

Orlov nodded. From the troubled set of his brows, he knew what was coming, and that he wouldn't enjoy it. That couldn't be helped. The process was what it was.

"I'll discuss it with him, make sure he's ready," Cooper said. "I promise he won't cause any problems. For anyone, including the nurses."

"Good." She pulled back her sleeve to look at her watch. "Dinner's in a couple of hours, they'll bring you something as well if you ask them. The nursing shift changes at six, the night shift head nurse will be Sam. The front gate closes at nine, opens again at seven tomorrow. You can leave after nine, but it's a pain in the ass to find someone to man the gate for you."

"Good to know, thanks."

She turned for the door.

Cooper followed her into the hall. "Miss Landy?" he started.

"Yes?"

"What's happening here with Kirill, am I"—he paused to sigh—"am I allowed to tell my wife about it? I know it’s a confidential matter, but I'd really like to share the news with her."

"The rules say you can't tell her."

His shoulders slumped.

Smiling, she added, "But since when have you ever cared about rules?"

"Thank you," he said, returning the smile. "For everything."

"You're very welcome."

 

She stopped at the nurse's station first, to let Aisha, Carol and Rosa know Cooper was staying behind, and that the 'guest' in room eight might be less of a challenge for them after tonight. Aisha thanked her, but wasn't convinced. Hardly surprising, given what she and her team had dealt with over the last couple of weeks. If Orlov wanted to win the nursing staff over, he would have to get on his knees (figuratively, given he couldn't bend his right leg) and grovel like no adult man had ever grovelled before. No easy task, but Pamela had a sense the ex-assassin could be charming when the occasion demanded. It would be interesting to see how the matter panned out.

Ten minutes later, she was back at the security office, collecting her coat and her purse. She found Tom Cronin sprawled in a chair, playing some kind of game on his phone. He sat up as she walked towards him.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"Better than any of us expected."

His brows shot up. "So, Orlov's on board?"

She wasn't surprised by his surprise. He'd taken a run at Orlov himself, a few days after the Russian's arrival, but had quickly run into a surly, immovable, ex-Spetsnaz brick wall. Tom was good (he wouldn't be on her team if he wasn't), but watching him trying to talk Orlov round had been like watching a kitten trying to climb the north face of the Eiger. He'd thrown in the towel after three days, labelling the plan for the Russian a complete waste of Company time and resources.

"As of ten minutes ago, yes, he is."

He looked at her askance. "That was easy."

"For you and me, yes." Although, even for them, it wasn't the word she would use. The last three weeks had been exhausting. "Don't think it's gonna be easy for Orlov, though. _Or_ Cooper. However this develops from here, they're both in for a rocky few months."

"You think they'll get through it?"

She paused, then nodded. "It'll be hard, but I think so, yes. They'll draw on each other, find a way to get through it together."

Tom pushed up out of his chair, sticking his phone in his pocket. "So, what now?" he asked.

She checked her watch. "Can you drive me back to the office? I have some errands I need to finish by the end of the day."

"Sure." He waved at the door. "I'm parked in row C. Whenever you're ready."

On the way out to his car, she pulled out her phone to dial a pre-programmed number.

Someone answered after three rings. "Hagerty," a man at the other end said.

With Hagerty, be bright and clear. She skipped the introductions to tell him, "Orlov folded, he's willing to play."

"So, you finally found the right stick?"

"Not so much a stick as a carrot."

"What kind of carrot?"

"Long story," she said, then added, "Why don't I come by and tell you in person? I'm on my way back to the office. Should be there in thirty or forty minutes."

"I'll order in a fresh pot of coffee."

The call went dead.

A gust of freezing cold wind made her pull her jacket up to her chin. The snow had stopped, but fresh clouds were gathering on the horizon, warning her another storm was coming. She didn't remember seeing an alert on the news. Maybe the storm was heading another way, or would blow over before it developed.

"You want me to drop you at the south entrance?" Tom asked, knowing that door was closer to Hagerty's office.

She shook her head. "Thanks, but I need to stop at my own office first."

And not just because she had to check her messages, and drop off her purse and her jacket. Cooper had come through for her, so now it was time to come through for him.

She had some documents to collect, and an appointment with a document shredder.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three months after the reunion, Pamela drops in to find out how the twins are doing.

Pamela approached the front door, paused to smoothe down the folds of her coat, then set her finger to the disc of the bell. Deep in the house, a sonorous, three-note chime rang out.

From somewhere inside, shoe-clad footsteps thundered towards her. A few moments later, the lock clicked and the door swung back, revealing a young boy of maybe seven or eight. He could only be William Cooper's son. And not just because he was standing at the front door of William Cooper's house. He was the spitting image of his father—the same inquisitive hazel eyes, the same neat-but-tousled brown hair, the same serious, furrow-prone brows.

She gave him her friendliest smile, but all she got in return was a mistrustful, 'who are you' stare. So, not just a physical resemblance, then. The same cautious reserve as his father as well.

"Hi there," she said to the boy, trying to remember his name. It came to her. "You must be Andrew, right?"

Still staring, he nodded.

"I'm a friend of your dad's from work," she told him, hoping that information would put him at ease. "Is he or your mom at home right now?"

"Who is it, sweetie?" a woman in the next room called out.

Without moving his eyes, Andrew called back, "A friend of dad's from work. A lady."

A few seconds later, the woman appeared at the door. She was in her late thirties or early forties, casually dressed in low-rise, boot-cut jeans paired with a stylish, figure-hugging black tee, tall, shapely and very attractive, with eyes that hovered between blue and grey and long brown hair tied back from her face. She must be Michelle—Cooper's wife. The trademark and copyright lawyer.

Handover to an adult complete, Andrew ducked behind his mother and disappeared back into the house.

"And you must be Michelle," Pamela said, smiling again and holding out her hand. "I'm—"

"—Pamela Landy," Michelle concluded, taking and shaking the hand, her grip a perfect balance of gentle and firm. "I recognize you from the news. We've been following the Senate hearings very closely."

Pamela tensed, ready for the tiny signs of disapproval she knew were probably coming next—the crossing of arms, the small step away, the creasing of brows, the smile that didn't extend to the eyes. "Please don't believe everything the other side's saying," she pleaded. "I promise I'm not as evil as they're making me out to be."

To Pamela's relief, Michelle snorted and said, "I know what you did for William and Kirill. And I may not be a civil rights or constitutional lawyer, but even _I_ know that Blackbriar project deserved to be blown. Gonna take more than a bad smear job by your old boss to make me think you're guilty of treason." She pulled the door all the way open to wave her inside. "You must be here to see one or both of the twins. Come in, please."

"Thank you."

The elegant room beyond the front hall wasn't at all what Pamela had expected, given the building's slightly shabby exterior finish. Whoever had chosen the fixtures and fittings had exquisite (if expensive) taste. She wouldn't have gone with so many light colours herself, especially not with two young kids in the house, but each to their own. Maybe Cooper had put his Marine Corps training to use, and was managing to raise his kids to be calmer and less messy than most. Or maybe all the fabrics and rugs were stain-resistant.

The décor was lovely, but nothing compared to the art. "These are beautiful pieces," Pamela said, gesturing to the paintings on three of the walls, two of moderate size, one almost as large as a car. They were all in the same colourful style, with the same swooping signature scrawled on the bottom. "All by the same artist?" she asked.

Michelle leaned over to push a bottom corner of one of the paintings, setting it perfectly back into place. She nodded. "All by William and Kirill's mother, yes."

Of course. The woman in Cooper's personal file—the one with the kind eyes. Pamela dredged up what few details she could remember. "Her name was Rebecca, right?"

"That's right. Rebecca Cooper."

"She was very talented." And Pamela wasn't saying that just to be kind. She'd seen a lot of terrible art in her time—DC was overrun with it—and these pieces definitely counted as good. Not Kandinsky good or Pollock good, but good nonetheless.

"I think so, yes." Michelle gestured at the smallest of the three works, perfectly centered on the wall across from the door. "This one's my favourite out of everything we have in the house."

Deservedly so. It was a beautiful piece—a sinuous, whirling pattern of colour formed from carefully guided trails of paint. It must have been a tedious piece to produce, but the end result was astounding. "Does it have a name?" Pamela asked.

"Yes, it's called _Reality's Existence_."

"Interesting name. Not sure how reality _couldn't_ exist."

Grinning, Michelle said, "That's pretty much what I said to William when I first saw it."

"Great minds obviously think alike," Pamela concluded, grinning back.

Michelle led her to the rear of the house, past a luxury, open-plan kitchen awash with Spanish granite and Miele logos, into a casual, sunny, toy-filled room that obviously served as the main family space. No exquisite, high-end furnishings here. Just some slightly battered but well-padded chairs, a massive, flat-screen TV, a magazine-covered coffee table and a couch so large it could probably hold the whole clan and still have room at the end for a guest. Pamela angled her head, trying to read the magazine titles. One was an issue of 'Guns & Ammo'. No huge surprise there. She hoped it was Cooper's—Orlov was on a strict weapons ban.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Michelle asked, coming up beside her. "Tea, coffee, water, pop, beer, wine?"

The week she'd just had, Pamela could _kill_ a nice glass of wine, but it was only one o'clock on a Sunday. She held up a hand to refuse. There would be plenty of time for a glass or two of her favourite Pinot Grigio later. "You're very kind, but I'm fine, thank you. I won't stay long. I just wanted to have a quick chat with the twins."

Michelle manoeuvered around the couch to collect a mug and a plate from the table. "They're upstairs playing a game on Drusha's X-Box," she said, sweeping some crumbs from the table onto the plate. "Some ridiculous, M-rated, first person shooter that generates more noise and cursing than I care for." Pausing to grab a stuffed toy from the couch and throw it into a wooden chest in the corner, she took the mug and plate to the kitchen, then gestured to the freshly-cleared seat. "Have a seat if you need one. Let me go and round them up for you." She snickered slightly. "If Kirill's cheating as much as he usually does"—she winced and raised her hands to acknowledge her error—"sorry, _playing as creatively_ as he usually does, William'll probably be on the verge of threatening physical violence by now."

An interesting revelation. Pamela knew from the reports she'd read before her 'special leave' had kicked in that Orlov had thrown off his old life, and was now more or less a new man. But maybe his promises to be kinder and better only extended so far. No more killing or harming people for money, no more trading stolen handguns and rifles through Moldova on the black market, but first person shooters were still every man for himself. "Does that happen a lot?" she asked. "The threats of physical violence, I mean. Not the ch—creative playing."

Michelle rolled her eyes. "Pamela, I swear, when they really get going, they're even worse than Drusha and Tania. They can't make it through something as simple as breakfast without arguing about who finished the toast, or whose turn it is to make the next pot of coffee. I shouldn't complain, cus Will says they were always like that, and I know it's just them making up for lost time, and how they express fraternal affection, but some days, it's like having four kids instead of two." She frowned. "Actually, make that three kids. Drusha's usually _way_ less trouble."

Pamela usually didn't approve of men who couldn't or wouldn't act their age, but in this situation, it made for a strangely heartwarming image. "Makes you wonder how their mother managed."

"Woman was a saint, that's all I'm saying."

As Michelle headed back into the hall, Pamela went to the double-height window to check out the view. It was a beautiful house in a beautiful setting, overlooking a verdant, secluded, tree-lined lawn that dropped down to a bubbling stream, and given what part of town it was in, it must have cost the Coopers a packet. More than William's wages would cover. Hell, more than her own wages would cover. But if Michelle was a partner with a big corporate firm, she probably earned more every month than her and William put together.

The joys of a federal government job—plenty of risk, not much reward.

The sound of feet on hardwood and carpet made Pamela turn back to the room. A few seconds later, the brothers appeared, both dressed as casually as Michelle, the younger sporting a dark grey tee, the older clad in a blue Henley with sleeves. She was briefly perturbed by the sight of Cooper—widely regarded by his co-workers at Langley as one of the Company's best-dressed men—in something that wasn't a razor-sharp suit. Orlov was barefoot and holding a bottle of beer (a Guinness, from the looks of the label), Cooper a wedge of some kind of cake.

She hadn't seen either man for almost three months, couldn't quite believe she was looking at the same people. And not just because of how they were dressed. Orlov had put on a few pounds (but not so much as to give him the same bulk as his twin), and had grown out his hair just enough to cover the angry scar on his head. He walked slowly, with a slight limp, but otherwise looked tanned and fit and healthy and happy. His body language had changed as well. The tension in his posture was gone, as was the disagreeable, semi-permanent glower. When he gave her a nervous, faltering smile, the shock almost made her need to sit down. Where was the cold-blooded assassin who'd once threatened to kill her whole team and burn the hospital to the ground? If she didn't know the answer already, she would be tempted to ask him if he had a less evil twin brother.

'Less' being a relative thing…

It wasn't just Orlov who gave her a shock—she could see changes in Cooper as well. Less obvious, but there nonetheless. He seemed less rigid, more laid back, more likely to greet you with a warm smile than a frown.

The brothers' reunion had obviously been a success beyond everyone's wildest dreams…

"Miss Landy, hi," Cooper said with a slight nod of his head, the epitome of workplace manners even in his own home.

"Sorry to interrupt your Sunday," she said.

Cooper waved her off. "No problem, don't worry about it. Not like we were doing anything really important."

"Unless you think kicking someone's ass is important," Orlov murmured into his beer.

"You were _not_ kicking my ass," Cooper said, turning to cast a soul-blasting glare at his twin. "That move I just made was _not_ a mistake. It was a strategic withdrawal."

Orlov rolled his eyes. "Of course. A _strategic withdrawal_ ," he repeated in a voice dripping with scorn. "Not a game-ending mistake even Tania would know to avoid." He sneered. "How _foolish_ of me."

Cooper's brows settled into a furious frown.

Uh oh.

With excellent timing, Michelle reappeared, now wearing high-heel boots and carrying a light summer coat, with Andrew trailing behind her. "Sorry to interrupt," she said, glancing from one twin to the other, her firm look making it clear she wasn't sorry at all and that their squabble could take a back seat for now. "We're going to the mall to buy Drusha a book, then to the pool to pick up Lucy and Tania. We'll also go to the store to grab some juice and milk. Anyone need anything when I'm there?"

Kirill waggled his now-empty bottle. "Could you possibly buy some more Guinness?" he asked, in the politest and most submissive tone Pamela had ever heard a man use. No prizes for guessing who you didn't disrespect in this house. "This was the last one in the pack," he helpfully added.

Michelle narrowed her eyes as she pulled on her coat. "Didn't I just buy a new pack?"

"You did," Cooper said. He flashed a sassy smile at his brother. "But our resident alcoholic drank it."

Orlov let out an indignant huff. " _You_ drank half of them," he muttered. "I might be an alcoholic, but at least I am not a sanctimonious blowhard as well."

"Sanctimonious?" Cooper repeated, brows climbing into his hair. "Wow. That's a big word for such a puny runt of a guy."

Scowling, Orlov took a half-step in. "Who the hell are you calling _puny_?"

Lordy. This was as bad as Michelle had described.

Pamela checked behind her and moved a step back.

Michelle saved the day. "More Guinness, okay, I'll buy _two_ packs this time," she said, holding up placating hands. She strode to her husband, glared at him, then pushed up on her toes to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. "We should be back in an hour." Still glaring, she wielded a warning finger at Orlov. "No fighting in the house. You want to prove who's puny or not, you damn well take it outside."

Orlov had the decency to look chastised.

Michelle turned to Pamela, grinning and rolling her eyes. "Was lovely to meet you, Pamela. Thank you again for your help with the boys, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed the Senate business works out for you." She looked around, brows pulling together, smiling as she located her purse. She stepped into the kitchen to grab it. "In my opinion, which admittedly, nobody with any sense ever asked for, the CIA needs more people like you. More _women_ like you." She sighed as she slung her bag over her shoulder. "Place is a goddamn sausage fest. Too many balls, not enough brains."

"What's a sausage fest?" Andrew innocently put in.

Michelle gestured at her spouse. "That's a question your daddy can answer."

Cooper's sigh made Pamela grin.

"Appreciate that, thanks," Pamela said in reply. Sympathy and gratitude were in short supply in her life right now—she was happy to take it wherever she could find it, even from one of her co-worker's wives. "Was lovely to meet you, too. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day." To Andrew she said, "Have fun buying your book."

This time, Andrew's response was a shy smile.

Michelle turned away, herding Andrew towards the front door, pausing only to grab some keys from a bowl. Once the duo were out of sight, Pamela opened her mouth to speak, but Cooper shook his head and held up a hand, asking her to wait a few moments.

The front door opened and closed. The three of them now had the house to themselves.

"How's the leg?" was her first question, to Orlov. She'd read the surgeon's post-op assessment, so she already knew more or less what his answer would be, but it seemed a good way to open the conversation. "Heard you finally got the operation you needed. Must be nice to be able to use it again."

"Very." Orlov flexed the leg in question, causing the hem of his pant to ride up, giving her a quick view of the GPS bracelet around his right ankle. By her calculation, he would be wearing it for at least the next month. "I cannot put my full weight on it yet, and it aches when I use it too much, or when the weather is damp, but it has only been seven weeks. The doctors warned me not to set my expectations too high, and that full recovery could take as long as two years." He shrugged. "I am not complaining. After what happened, I am just glad to still have it," he added, reminding her of the fact that a below-the-knee amputation had briefly been on the cards.

She tapped the side of her skull. "And what about the head? Any neurological problems?"

"Does being a raging asshole count?" Cooper muttered.

Now, it was Orlov's turn to cast a silencing glare. "Nothing debilitating so far. The occasional headache, some dizziness, some minor memory and coordination problems. And my senses are a little bit fuzzy." He hesitated, then added, "Sometimes, I see things that turn out not to be there, right at the edge of my vision."

"No blackouts or seizures?"

He shook his head. "For which I am _profoundly_ grateful."

"Sleeping okay?"

"It varies from day to day." Another shrug. "Given what I am currently dealing with, as well as can be expected."

That was a feeling she understood. Her own sleep patterns were none too stable these days…

"And how's the new job?" she asked, turning to Cooper. "Word has it they gave you Cynthia's role." She purposely didn't tell him who she'd heard that piece of news from. She trusted him (as much as she trusted anyone right now), but what the former Marine didn't know he couldn't accidentally share with one of her many detractors at Langley.

Cooper nodded. "They did, yeah, but only on an interim basis for now, until they decide who they want to put in it for good. The extra paperwork's a bitch, but the pay bump was nice, even if it's only for a few months. Plus, I'm mostly in the office, not out in the field as much, so I'm working more predictable hours. Means I'm home for dinner more often."

"Will you say 'yes' if they offer it to you on a permanent basis?" A distinct possibility—he was more than capable of filling the role—but only if the business with his brother eventually went the right way. If the lawyers decided to hand Orlov back to his former masters in Moscow, the CIA would likely give Cooper his marching orders at the same time. Keeping him would be too much of a risk. A bitter, pissed-off, vengeful employee was a dangerous thing to have, especially for one of the world's leading intelligence organizations. Cooper had a lower security clearance than her, so he didn't know the really good secrets, but he knew enough to do some serious damage if he put his mind to it.

"Probably, yeah. I'd want to change the team up, do things a different way, but so would any new boss."

"Any truth to another rumour I heard, that they're gonna restructure your whole department?" She already knew they were restructuring hers, but given how many of its more senior members had just either resigned or been shown to the door because of the Blackbriar debacle, that was hardly surprising.

"Yeah, I heard that as well. If it's on the cards, they're not telling me." He smirked. "But that's the CIA for you. Place is so secretive, you only find out you've been let go when your card doesn't work on the door."

It wasn't _quite_ that bad, but it wasn't far off…

Cooper paused to take a bite of his cake—a sugary, yellow and pink concoction. "What about you?" he asked. "I heard they put you on leave with full pay until the Senate hearings are done. Any news on if and when they might let you back?"

"They won't."

He raised a brow. "What, _ever_?"

"They let me go on Friday morning. On the grounds I leaked confidential information." A charge she couldn't deny. For all that Blackbriar had deserved to be exposed, she'd still broken both the law and numerous Company regulations. "I've known for a while it was coming. It was just a question of when."

Cooper sighed. "I'm really sorry to hear that." Frowning, he looked to his twin, whose face wore an equally disgruntled expression. "We both are. After everything you did to help us, we were hoping karma would come through for you."

She shrugged and stuck her hands in her pockets. "It is what it is. No point in crying over spilled milk." Or, in her case, spilled government secrets. Even if she wanted to (which she didn't), she couldn't put the Blackbriar genie back in the bottle.

"Is that the end of the disciplinary process?" Orlov asked, briefly stepping into the kitchen to open a recycling bin and throw in his bottle.

"The CIA process, yes. The Department of Justice process, no."

Hesitantly, as if he was scared to know the answer, he asked, "Do you think the Department of Justice will charge you?"

"I'm hoping it won't come to that, but given the gravity of the situation, I wouldn't bet any money on it." She'd made a lot of enemies in the last couple of months, many of whom either were or knew people in power. They'd made it abundantly clear they would do their best to have her jailed, even if, in many other people's opinions, leaking evidence of Blackbriar's existence had been the right thing to do.

"I'm sorry," Cooper quietly said, brows furrowing in unease. He looked at his cake, then leaned out to set it on a side table , his appetite suddenly missing. "Truly. If there's anything any of us can do, me, Kirill or Mike, you just have to ask."

She smiled but shook her head to refuse. "Appreciate that, but there probably isn't. And even if there was, I wouldn't ask. The two of you have enough problems to deal with already."

"There's always room for one more."

"Yes, but you're forgetting the guys at the DoJ will talk to each other. You help me with my case, the lawyers on yours will know by the end of the day. They might not take very kindly to you helping someone they're trying to send to prison."

Sighing, Cooper shared a troubled look with his brother. "There is that, yeah."

"On that subject, I understand your final hearing's next week?" she said, turning to address Orlov again.

"With some CIA and Justice Department lawyers, yes."

His last chance to plead his case, to prove his worth, to persuade the government to allow him to stay.

"Any sense of how it's going to turn out?" she asked. She was still trying to decide what outcome she would be satisfied with, if she would rather see Orlov sent back to Moscow to be punished for what he'd done in Berlin, or if he should be allowed to continue with his new life. Most of the time, she leaned to the latter, if only because whatever punishment Kirill Orlov deserved, to the best of her knowledge, William Cooper absolutely didn't. Losing his brother all over again would likely damage Cooper in ways she didn't want to consider.

Cooper responded. "Our lawyer's pushing the citizenship angle, arguing that if Kirill's a US citizen, legally, he can't be deported, and they can only send him back to Russia if Moscow requests his extradition."

"Which it won't."

"Which it won't, no."

Orlov agreed. "The FSB has closed the file on the Gretkov affair. Yuri is dead, Pekos is under Kremlin control, and I am out of the picture. They have nothing to gain from requesting my extradition. They know that if they don't bother me, I will not bother them."

Pamela asked, "You heard about Gretkov, then?" The oligarch had been found dead in his basement cell in Butyrka just over two weeks before. No official cause of death had as yet been released, probably because his killers in the Kremlin were still trying to decide what explanation would convince the most people.

Orlov gestured at a folded-up newspaper lying on one of the chairs. "It was reported in The Moscow Times."

"How'd you feel about that? He wasn't a friend, but you _did_ work for him for almost a year."

Orlov shrugged, but she could tell from the set of his mouth that the question bothered him more than he cared to admit. "It is bad that they killed him, but nobody forced him to do what he did."

_Nobody forced him to do what he did._

Ironically, a sentiment that applied to her and Orlov as well…

She turned back to Cooper. "You think it'll work? The citizenship thing?"

"The US Embassy in Berlin dug up the passport applications our mom submitted for us when we were born," he said. "We don't know what happened to Kirill's actual passport, it's long since lost, and long since expired, but the form shows the State Department accepted he was a citizen. There used to be a residency requirement if you were born overseas, but they abolished that in seventy-eight, and he's never renounced his claim, so I think our argument's pretty solid."

It seemed solid to her as well. But the Russians were only one part of the extradition equation. "Any news on what the Germans are likely to do?"

Cooper shook his head. "None so far. I've put out some feelers through friends at the DoJ and State, but nobody's saying a thing."

"You're worried that means it's going to go bad."

His brows pulled into a frown. "A little bit, yes."

"Well, you know what they say. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst."

"We've covered the former. The latter's causing some trouble."

She wondered how much planning they'd done, if they actually had an escape route in place, if they'd lined up someone with a small plane to fly Orlov to Mexico or Cuba. No matter how well it worked, it wouldn't be a perfect solution. It would flip Orlov out of the frying pan, but leave Cooper behind to deal with the mess, up to his balls in the fire. Unless he was planning to move the whole clan, which seemed highly unlikely.

"I can imagine," was all she said.

Cooper's eyes flicked to the clock on the wall.

"Sorry, I should have asked, am I holding you up?" Pamela said, looking from one twin to the other. "Is there somewhere you need to be?"

"No, you're fine," Cooper assured her. "We're going to see the Nationals game, but it doesn't start for a while. Just wanted to check where we are in the day. There's plenty of time."

"Having a guy's day out?"

He nodded. "Was actually something my wife arranged for us. She bought us the tickets as our birthday present. She was gonna throw a big party today, put on an outdoor lunch, but she's had a busy few weeks at work, and neither of us is really a big party person, so we persuaded her to do something easy." He smirked. "Think she's trying to get us out of the house so she can have the place to herself."

"Is it your birthday today?" she asked.

"Tomorrow," Orlov put in. He smiled at his brother. "Our first one together since we were ten."

And they were spending it watching a _Nationals game_? That didn't seem like a present to her. "Sorry for not remembering that."

Cooper waved her away. "Don't be. Would never expect you to, and you've had a lot on your mind."

"Who are they playing?"

"Sorry?"

"The Nationals," she said. "Who are they playing?"

"Right, yeah, uh, the Orioles, I think." He shrugged and gave her a sheepish look. "To be honest, we don't really care. Neither of us is a huge baseball fan. We're just going to have a day out."

Orlov added, "There is an Irish bar across the street that apparently serves the best pint of Guinness in town, so if the game turns out to be more boring than either of us can manage, we will leave and go to the pub instead."

She knew the bar he meant. "If I were you, I'd go to the pub straight away," she warned. "It's baseball. Trust me. It's going to be boring."

Cooper grinned. "Not much of a fan?"

"Let's just say I'd rather be waterboarded in front of the Senate than spend a day at Nationals Park."

"Call us at four o'clock, we might say the same thing," Orlov drily added.

Cooper picked up his cake to take a quick bite. "So, uh, was there something in particular you wanted to talk to us about?" he asked, then hastily added, "Not that we don't appreciate you dropping in for a visit, of course."

"Yes and no. It's mostly just a quick social call. I'm meeting a friend for lunch in Tyson's Corner,"—one of the few who was still willing to be seen in public with her—"so I was kind of in the neighbourhood, thought I'd drop in and say 'hi', check on how you're both doing."

"Very kind of you, thank you. And the other part?"

"I wanted to share some good news with you. I would have shared it back when I first heard it myself, but I was under strict orders not to." And still was, even now, since CIA orders didn't expire just because you'd been marched out the door. Not that she cared. If the Company had a problem with what she was about to do, it could take it up with her lawyer, along with all its other complaints. The brothers deserved to know the truth.

"What news is that?" Cooper asked, eyes going slightly wide.

She turned to Orlov. "I thought you should know, the intel you gave us in your debriefing session was good. The FBI found the SVR safe house in Seven Corners."

"Are they shutting it down?" Orlov asked.

"The head of the Bureau's counter-espionage group has decided to leave it running for now, but under round-the-clock surveillance. They're going to monitor it for a few months, keep a record of who comes and goes, move in at the best possible moment, whenever they think they can catch the most flies."

"That is a _very_ good plan."

"It is." She smiled. "But you didn't hear about it from me."

"Didn't hear about what from who?" was Orlov's smooth-as-silk response. In that moment, she understood why it had taken the Russian barely a week to persuade his nurses he wasn't all bad.

Cooper heaved a weary sigh. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but you _do_ realize, I'll have to tell my boss about what you just did?"

She hadn't considered that. "Do you _want_ to tell your boss about what I just did?" She wouldn't blame him if he did. Unlike her, he had a family to protect.

"Course not."

She shrugged. "Then don't."

"It's not as simple as that."

"Yes, it is," Orlov put in. He held up a hand to cut off his brother's response. "Forget what you learned in the Corps. You are a _man_ , Viko, not a worker bee in a hive. Do what you think is right. Fuck the rules, and fuck what the CIA thinks."

Cooper snorted. "Fuck what the CIA thinks? Really? Is that what you're gonna say to the DoJ lawyers next week?"

"Of course not. But that is a completely different level of problem. If _I_ don't do what the CIA says, I will lose everything, very likely including my life. If _you_ don't do what the CIA says, absolutely nothing of consequence will happen. This is a trivial matter. Nobody will give a shit about who just did what, except Carrington and his paper pushers. Let it go," Orlov pleaded.

"They'll find out," Cooper countered. "They _always_ find out. It's what they do."

"My lips are sealed, so it won't come from me," Pamela told the two men, thinking that Orlov was right, and that Cooper should learn to be his own man and not worry so much about what his boss and the CIA wanted. "And I'm pretty sure you both have the sense to keep your mouths shut, so I don't see how we have a problem."

"We don't," Orlov said. He crossed his arms and glared at his brother, pushing the older twin to agree.

Cooper huffed, nodded and went back to his cake.

Now, it was Pamela's turn to glance at the clock. "On that note, I think I'll head out," she said, hitching her bag over her shoulder. "Let you boys get back to whatever you were doing." Even if what they were doing was cheating at an X-Box game and threatening to beat each other into the ground.

Orlov opened his mouth to speak, frowned, sighed and closed it again. The man had something on his mind, but whatever it was, it would have to wait.

Cooper waved her towards the front door. "Where are you going for lunch?" he asked as they walked, Orlov trailing behind them.

"The Sweetwater Tavern. You ever been there?"

"That's the place with the cowboy theme, right? Just off 50 near the 495?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Been a couple of times, but not for a few years. Think I had the crab cake sandwich last time. Was pretty good."

They strolled across the sitting room, past the trio of beautiful paintings, heading for the front hall. Cooper moved ahead to reach for the door.

"Miss Landy?" Orlov asked, finally finding the courage to say whatever it was he wanted to say.

She paused and turned. "Yes?"

The Russian sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Thank you," he solemnly said, face drawn, brows pulling together.

"For what?"

"For everything," he explained. "For not leaving me to die in a car crash in Moscow. For bringing me to the United States. For persuading the CIA it was worth the trouble to give me a chance. For bringing Viko and I back together." Embarrassed, he dropped his eyes to the floor. "I know it must have been extremely hard for you to help me, after what I did to your team in Berlin." He raised his eyes and forced himself to meet her gaze. "I know I have never given you a reason to trust me, much less like me, but please believe me when I say, I am _extremely_ grateful."

Her response was blunt. "What you did in Berlin was horrific."

The muscles in his jaw jumped. "It was," he quietly admitted.

"And I didn't do what I did to help you. I did what I did to help my country." Not that her country seemed to care about the help she'd provided, given the massive legal mess she was in. "Don't assume that me stopping in to see how you're doing means I've forgotten you killed four innocent people."

"I would never assume that, and I have not forgotten what I did, either. I know those people's deaths are on me, and I have promised the CIA that I will make amends however I can."

She scanned his face, looking for signs he was lying, either to her, or to himself. Her search came up blank. Maybe you really could teach a bad dog new tricks. "If it makes you feel better, I actually believe you," she said. "What you did in Berlin was horrific, but for reasons I won't go into right now, I think you deserve a second chance." Her thoughts went to Jason Bourne, once again on the run, still fighting to be allowed to have his. And what about her? If she forgave Orlov, would someone else forgive her in turn, give her a second chance of her own? Right now, that seemed highly unlikely. She raised a warning finger. "But if they _do_ give you a second chance, you better not abuse it. You screw up again, you won't need to worry about the Germans or Russians, because I'll track you down and kill you myself."

"I promise that I will not abuse it." Orlov drew in a deep breath. "I promise that the person I used to be is gone. No more killing, no more violence, and no more following terrible people's equally terrible orders."

"Good."

At least Orlov had learned that lesson. She hoped Cooper would eventually learn it as well.

Cooper unlocked and opened the door.

She paused mid-step. What if hoping wasn't enough? Wasn't it her duty to warn him, and to set him on the right path? It would only take a few minutes—her lunch friend wouldn't mind waiting if it was for a good cause.

"Speaking of following terrible people's equally terrible orders," she said.

Frowning, Cooper asked, "What about it?"

"Did you know I once worked with Cynthia Wilkes? Many years ago, on an inter-departmental project?"

He shook his head.

"And that at the end of the project, I vowed never to work with her again?"

"That doesn't surprise me. Cynthia was extremely efficient, but she could be pretty blunt, so she wasn't always an easy person to work with."

"She wasn't, no, but her bluntness had nothing to do with my decision." It wasn't like she couldn't be candid herself. "I decided I didn't want to work with her again because she was too willing to believe the ends justified the means, regardless of whether the means were legal."

Cooper's jaw started to twitch as well. Obviously a family trait.

Pamela continued, "I don't know what kind of work you did for her, _or_ what you really did in Chicago, _or_ how she really died, and quite frankly, I don't want to know, but if there's one lesson we should all learn out of the Treadstone and Blackbriar affairs, it's that we need to be more cautious with our moral choices. You might believe you're doing the right thing by always following your boss's orders, and I know it's what you're used to doing because you used to be in the Corps, but you need to make sure the orders you follow are legal."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I, uh, I've actually thought about that over the last couple of months. I realize now that I did a lot of work for Cynthia without really thinking it through, just because she asked me to do it."

"Illegal work?"

"Let's just say it had some moral boundary issues."

Part of her really wanted to know what he'd done, but for the sake of her sanity (and because she shouldn't keep her lunch date waiting _too_ long), she restricted herself to giving advice. "You need to go in a different direction. Blind obedience might be good for your career, especially if it brings great results, but it's not so good for your soul, _or_ for keeping you out of prison. Whether it comes in the form of an angry widow armed with a lawyer, or a journalist on the hunt for a Pulitzer prize, or a Senate Judicial Committee, karma will always come looking for you."

"I'm learning that lesson already."

"And?"

He paused to consider his answer. "And Kirill's not the only one thinking about second chances. I'm taking a new direction as well, making sure my career ambitions don't blind me to what's right. Putting Cynthia's black and white bullshit behind me."

"And if the job ever needs you to pick up the bullshit again?"

"I'll find another job."

That was _exactly_ what she wanted to hear.

Her work here was done. She stepped out the door, nodding at Cooper as she passed.

"Miss Landy?" Orlov repeated.

She paused on the stoop. "Yes?"

"What happened in New York, when you released the Blackbriar files, did you ever find Jason Bourne?"

"Yes and no." At his confused look, she added, "I found him, and he found himself, but in the end, I'm not sure it actually mattered."

"If you ever see him again, could you give him a message?"

Right now, a reunion with Bourne seemed highly unlikely, but agreeing couldn't do any harm. "What message is that?"

Orlov swallowed. "Could you please tell him that I am sorry?"

Pamela forced a smile. But inside, she wasn't smiling. "We all are, Mister Orlov. For a great many things."

"Good luck with the Senate," Cooper said. "I'd tell you to give the bastards hell, but you seem to be doing a pretty good job of that already."

"Good luck with your legal review," she countered. She held out her hand, briefly shook with each brother in turn. "I won't go so far as to say I hope it has a happy ending, cus that's not always what the Company does, but I _do_ hope it brings you some kind of peace." Preferably, alive and together. "Maybe, at some point in the future, when all the fuss has died down, and everyone's moved on to some other scandal, we'll see each other again."

"If we all make it through this alive, the beers are on me," Cooper offered. He shrugged. "Or wines. Whatever works."

"Mister Cooper, you have a deal."

 

Two minutes later, she was back in her car, thinking about what she and the brothers had just discussed, comparing Orlov's legal problems to her own none-too-envious situation. It was ironic, really, that Kirill Orlov, the man who'd killed and harmed so many innocent people on FSB orders was likely to keep his freedom, while she might lose hers, just because she'd broken a law that had desperately needed to be broken.

But nobody had ever said life was fair. And nobody had forced her to leak the Blackbriar files. She could have thrown them in the trash, turned around, walked away and pretended none of the Bourne mess had ever happened. If she'd done that, she would still have her career. Hell, they might even have given her a promotion—a reward for being what Ezra and Noah called 'an effective team player'. But would she be able to sleep at night? Probably not. And was it a team she wanted to play on? Not a goddamn chance. They could take her career, and maybe her freedom as well, but they would never, _ever_ take her principles and morals. So, whatever problems were heading her way, she would meet them the way she always met them—with her chin up and her shoulders back, looking her enemies straight in the eye, daring the bastards to do their worst.

Their worst would be good, but hers would be even better.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William and Kirill talk about the future.
> 
> Takes place immediately after Chapter 3.

At the dining room window, they stood shoulder to shoulder, watching Pamela driving away, Kirill with his hands still jammed in his pockets, leaning on his good leg, William lazily eating the last of his cake.

"I did not expect that," Kirill said.

"What, the visit?"

"That, or for the visit to be so pleasant."

William turned to give him a wide-eyed look, brows climbing into his hair. "You thought that was _pleasant_?" he said.

"Did it not seem pleasant to you?"

"Not really, no. I mean, she wasn't _rude_ or anything, don't get me wrong, and I appreciate her taking the time to come see us, but she didn't exactly give me a case of the warm and fuzzies, either."

"Warm and fuzzy are not words I would ever use to describe her. She is a _frighteningly_ competent woman."

William snorted. "Frightening, yeah, that's a good way to put it." He popped the last of his cake in his mouth. "Didn't know her at all before the business with you came up, but she was already working at Langley back when I started, over in the Counter-Intelligence group, and she's always had a hell of a reputation." He dusted some crumbs from his hands. "Back in January, when I got the message saying she wanted to have a quick chat, the first thing I did was call Mike and ask her when I'd last updated my will."

Kirill didn't really know Landy either, but given how she'd handled him during their various hospital meetings, that seemed a sensible way to react. Whatever else she might be, she certainly wasn't a woman who suffered fools (or duplicitous ex-assassins) gladly. "I wonder why she wanted to see us?" he asked. He wasn't convinced by the social call explanation. Something else was going on—he just didn't know what.

"You heard what she said. She was just dropping in while she was in this part of town."

"You really believe that?"

"Can't see a good reason I shouldn't. They're probably going to send her to jail, so she's trying to wrap up a bunch of loose ends while she still has the chance. If I were her, I'd be doing the same thing. Going to see everybody I needed to see, do everything I needed to do. And she didn't ask us anything she shouldn't have asked, so I don't get the feeling she had an ulterior motive."

"She asked us if we had any sense of how my DoJ hearing might go."

William frowned. "Yeah, so?"

"So, what if that was a trap? What if she has made her own deal with the DoJ, so already knows _exactly_ how my hearing will go, and came here to try to find out if someone on our DoJ team has illegally shared inside information with us?"

"What, like, entrapment?"

"Yes."

"I doubt it. She's cold, but she's not _that_ cold."

And even if she was, they hadn't told her anything incriminating, if only because they didn't _know_ anything incriminating. Nobody on their DoJ team would even give them the time of day, much less inside information.

Perhaps William was right. Kirill knew he was far more suspicious than his brother by nature—a side-effect of spending twenty years in a job where _not_ being suspicious could get you killed—so perhaps he was jumping to conclusions that didn't deserve to be entertained.

"You really think they will send her to jail?" Kirill asked.

William's nod was emphatic. "I do, yes."

"That does not seem very fair. She broke the law, yes, but with extremely honourable intentions." Not that Kirill had much personal experience of what 'honourable' was, but what Landy had done with the Blackbriar files seemed as good an example as any.

"She also triggered a political scandal that's already taken down a half dozen high-ranking members of a major intelligence organization, and could eventually take down a half dozen more," William pointed out. "Nobody gives a damn about how honourable her intentions were. They're just out for blood. They need someone to take the blame, and they've decided to give her the job."

"Should they not blame Abbott, Vosen and Kramer instead?" Especially Abbott. For personal reasons, Kirill wanted him to carry the can.

"Course they should. But Ward Abbott's dead, and Vosen and Kramer both have friends in much higher places than her." William smirked. "You used to work for a Russian oligarch. You of all people should understand how that works."

Kirill huffed. "Viko, I understand _perfectly_ how it works. But this is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. If the system cannot function properly here, what hope is there for anywhere else?" And if the system in question couldn't protect someone as principled as Pamela Landy, what the hell did it mean for him—a lying, immoral ex-government killer? "It makes me wonder if we should assume the worst, and put my exit plan into action."

Sighing, William turned away from the window, leading Kirill back to the rear of the house. "Like I told you, it's not the plan itself that's the problem." In the kitchen, he went to the sink and turned on the tap to run his fingers under the stream. "I can get you out of the country, the plane's lined up and ready to go, but it's knowing if and when we should pull the trigger." He turned off the tap and grabbed a towel to dry his hands. "If the DoJ decides not to allow you to stay, they'll take you back into custody right there at the end of the hearing. I won't have the chance to get you out."

"But there is no point in activating the plan in advance, in case it turns out not to be needed," Kirill concluded. _He_ would be safe, wherever he ended up, albeit unable to ever return to the States. But as the brains and money behind his pre-emptive escape, William would be in all kinds of trouble. Not 'deported to Russia to face execution' trouble, but serious trouble nonetheless.

"Which is why I'm quietly talking to all the people I know at Justice and State, trying to get a feel for which way the wind's likely to blow." William sighed and pressed his palms into his eyes. "But they're clammed up tight. Nobody's saying a goddamn thing."

"If we cannot plan for the worst, we will just have to hope for the best," Kirill said, trying to convince himself as much as his brother. He forced a tight smile. "Perhaps the universe will be on our side this time," he added.

"This time?"

"This time facing separation," Kirill explained. "The universe did not come through for us when we were ten. Perhaps this time, it will take pity on us."

William went to the coffee machine, pulled out the pot and unscrewed the lid to peer inside. Satisfied with what he found, he opened the cupboard to pull out a mug. "That's a nice idea," he said, filling the mug with coffee, tipping the pot almost all the way over to drain it to the last drop, "but if we didn't deserve the universe's pity when we were ten, I don't see how the _hell_ we deserve it now."

" _I_ don't, but _you_ might."

William stuck the pot back on the plate. "Nope. Pretty sure I don't deserve it, either."

"You mean because of what you did to your boss?" Kirill asked. Which didn't seem fair, since she'd absolutely deserved to be shot, and William had killed her to save the life of an innocent woman.

"That, and a few other things."

"If you ever want to get those other things off your chest, I will listen without judging," Kirill said. He wasn't the best listener in the world—his abilities in that regard usually ran to wearing a pensive frown while nodding sagely in all the right places—but after everything William had done for him, it seemed only fair to offer some support in return.

William snorted. "Says the man who can't even _breathe_ without judging."

"When have I ever judged you?"

"How about every damn minute of this game we've been playing?" William said, using his empty hand to wave at the stairs, which led to the media room downstairs. "Every single move I make, all I get in return is snarky, muttered criticism? In English _and_ Russian?"

"Mother of God, Viko, it is only a _game_ ," said Kirill, exasperated. "You should know me well enough by now to realize that psychological warfare is simply one of my tactics." He wrinkled his nose. "And it is not _my_ fault all your moves are so shitty. You don't want me to complain, make a move that gives me nothing to complain about."

Eyes narrowing, William drew away slightly. "You know something?"

"What?"

I'm beginning to think I liked you more back when I thought you were dead."

Kirill's heart sank into his feet. "Please tell me you don't really mean that."

William snickered and reached out to muss Kirill's hair. "Course I don't. Just fucking with you."

Relief flooded through Kirill's body. "Even if it means you never win a game of _Operation Flashpoint_ again for as long as you live?" he asked, smoothing his rumpled hair into place.

"I'll beat you eventually."

"That is what you used to say about chess when we were children," Kirill reminded his twin. "And we both know how _that_ worked out." As he remembered, with William losing and picking a fight, their mother pitching a bad-tempered fit, the two of them cowed into stupefied silence, the cardboard chessboard ripped in two and shoved in the trash, and the plastic pieces scattered across the apartment building's communal garden. It had taken him _hours_ to find them all and gather them up. A waste of time, as it turned out—their father had made him leave them in Berlin.

"Sorry, I don't remember."

Kirill grunted. But of _course_ William didn't. Shouldn't _he_ be the one with the memory like a kitchen sieve, given the head injuries he'd sustained in the crash? Maybe that was what happened when men got married—remembering became a chore their more capable wives then handled for them. Or, maybe William's memory had just always been shit.

"Viko, it never ceases to amaze me how fucking _terrible_ your memory is. I am honestly surprised you remember how to put your trousers on in the morning."

"Pants."

"Sorry?"

William took a gulp of his coffee. "This is the United States. We don't call them trousers here. We call them _pants_."

"Oh, well. Excuse the socially illiterate shit out of me." Whether he called them trousers or pants, Kirill could garotte his brother to death with a pair in an equally short amount of time…

"Don't apologize. _Learn_. You want to fit in, you need to know the lingo. The sooner you start, the sooner you'll sound like you belong."

"Pants," Kirill muttered, looking down at his jeans. "This seems ridiculous. Pants are what women wear underneath."

"Those are panties. Different thing altogether."

"Yes, Viko, thank you, I am _entirely_ aware of that. I may not be as married as you, but I am _quite_ familiar with how women put on their clothes." Or, to be more precise, how women took those clothes _off_. Could William undo a three hook bra clasp in the dark with one hand? _Highly_ unlikely.

"You think pants and panties are bad, wait 'til you get to the weights and measures. You'll have an aneurysm figuring out what the hell a dry pint is." William checked his watch. "And speaking of pints, we should probably think about heading out soon. The game starts at two."

"How long will it take to play?" Kirill asked. He'd never been to a baseball game before, had no idea of what to expect.

"As long as it takes to finish nine innings." William shrugged. "Could be two hours, could be seven. No idea."

" _Seven_ hours?" Kirill exclaimed. If the game ran that long, they wouldn't have time to go to a bar—he had to be back at the house by nine. " _Bozhe moi_ , Viko, I cannot even _sleep_ for that long, never mind watch a sporting event." Unless the sporting event was watching the _armeitsy_ thrash the _myaso_.

William downed what was left of his coffee, grimacing as he hit the dregs. "Don't worry. We won't be there for seven hours. We'll take a rain check at the end of the fifth. If it looks like the game's gonna run long, we'll pack up and bug out then."

"How long into the game will that be?"

Another shrug. "Maybe a couple of hours?" William frowned. "Why do you ask? Somewhere else you gotta be?"

"We _did_ talk about going to a bar."

"We can have some beers and snacks at the game."

"It will not be the same." Kirill had never been to Nationals Park, but he couldn't see them serving a decent pint of plain. The entire place probably ran on Budweiser Ice, or Labatt Blue Light, or some other bland, American cooking lager. And he didn't want an overcooked hot dog for dinner.

"You're really set on the bar thing, aren't you?" said William.

"Yes."

"Any particular reason?"

"Today is to celebrate our birthday, yes?"

"Uh huh?"

Kirill shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets, trying to exude a nonchalance he didn't feel. "If things go badly with the DoJ next week, this could be the last birthday I see." He smiled softly. "It is the first one we will spend together since we were ten. If it is also going to be the _last_ one we spend together, I want it to be as good as a birthday can be."

William sighed. "Yeah, me too," he said. Brows creasing, he turned away. He rinsed and dried his mug and put it back in the cupboard above the coffee machine, then took the machine apart to clean out and throw away the grounds. His posture was tense and brusque, and as he moved, he looked at anything other than Kirill.

What an emotionally constipated pair they made.

"Why don't you go put on some socks?" said William, turning just enough to gesture at Kirill's bare feet. He moved to grab the phone from its cradle. "I'll call for a cab."

Socks, yes. And probably shoes and a jacket as well.

In the basement, Kirill switched off the Playstation and the TV (he didn't bother to save their game), then went to grab a pair of socks from his bedside drawer. He sat on his bed to pull the socks on, carefully working the right one under the rigid band of his GPS bracelet. At the least the GPS unit itself—a sleak, modern CIA model—was slender enough to fit under the cuff of his jeans.

He grabbed his boots and headed back up the stairs.

William was setting the phone in the cradle. "Cab's on the way, should be here in ten minutes."

"Which jacket are you planning to wear?" Kirill asked, dropping his boots beside the couch and heading to the rack in the hall.

"The black one."

Dammit. Kirill had been hoping to wear the black one himself. It was stylish and warm, with a flattering fit, and in his not-so-humble opinion, it looked much better on him. He knew better than to argue the point—the more he tried to persuade William to wear something else, the harder William would dig his heels in. It was like being a kid all over again—arguing about whose turn it was to wear the Superman pajamas…

He grabbed two jackets from the rack, kept the blue one for himself and laid the black one on the kitchen island.

Shoes, jackets and watches went on; keys and wallets went into pockets. William grabbed his phone.

"You have the tickets?"

William patted his jacket's breast pocket. "Right here." He pointed at Kirill's ankle. "You charged that enough to last until nine?"

"I plugged it in overnight. The battery is at ninety percent."

They went to stand at the dining room window again, this time watching for a car driving up instead of someone driving away.

Outside, nothing moved. Inside, the house was silent, apart from the ticking of the dining room clock.

Kirill checked his watch and snuck a sideways glance at his twin.

Was this finally the right moment to say something he wanted (and needed) to say? Something he'd been thinking about for the last couple of days? Probably not—the cab was due any minute. And it wasn't the lightest or slightest of topics—it might be better to bring it up later, once they'd had a couple of beers. If it went wrong, or if emotions threatened to get in the way, he could use 'alcohol made me talk' as a cover.

But he didn't want to wait until later. He wanted to say it now, before the two of them left the house, so William would understand exactly what this day meant to him.

"Viko?" Kirill started.

"Uh huh?"

"There is something I would like to tell you."

"If you're about to tell me you did the dirty with Melinda at number twelve while you were over there last week helping her with her microwave oven, don't bother, I already know."

And here, he thought they'd been discreet. "Not about what I did with Melinda, no."

"What, then?"

Heart pounding, Kirill took a deep breath. How the _fuck_ should he even say this? What words should he actually use? "I just wanted you to know, that however the meeting next week works out, that is, whatever happens with the DoJ lawyers—"

William held up a blocking hand. "Stop," he ordered, face settling into a scowl. "I know what you're gonna say, and I don't wanna hear it." He turned away, shoulders tight, angrily jamming his hands in his pockets. "It's gonna work out. It's gonna be fine."

"But it might _not_ be fine," Kirill said. Optimism was all well and good, but they had to be realistic as well. The situation might very well end in the worst and most horrible way—with him being put on the next plane to Russia, met there by the FSB, arrested, imprisoned, starved, tortured and shot. He'd seen it happen; he knew how it worked. There would be no lengthy prison sentence for him.

William dropped his chin to stare at the spot between his feet.

"So, I want you to know, that whatever happens next, I have no regrets." Kirill laid a hand on William's shoulder. "If I could go back in time to last November and make my choices all over again, I would _still_ choose the path that led to this day." He gave the shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I would still choose to be in that crash, and spend my final five months with you than live to ninety-nine in Russia without ever seeing you again."

William turned to look at him. "You really mean that?" he murmured.

"Viko, I have never meant anything more in my life."

William moved towards him. Kirill tensed, expecting some kind of attack.

"Jesus, _brat_ , I'm not gonna punch you," William said. "I'm trying to give you a goddamn hug."

A hug, of course, yes.

Tentatively, as if he wasn't sure he knew what to do, William pulled Kirill into a light embrace. Kirill—no more sure of how to accept affection than his twin was of how to give it—responded more or less in kind, slipping his arms around his brother until they were chest to chest and ear to ear. After ten seconds, he patted William on the back, signalling he could wrap up the hug and step away.

But William didn't budge. He pulled Kirill in, holding on for dear life—almost as tightly as Kirill had held on to him back on the day of their reunion.

"I'm really glad we had this time," William murmured into his neck, squeezing him even tighter again. "Even if it all goes to shit, and I end up losing you all over again." Finally, he pulled away, still holding Kirill by the shoulders. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. "I wouldn't trade the last five months for anything, either."

Emotions welled in Kirill's chest. Emotions he wasn't used to feeling—shame, regret, sorrow, love. Especially love. There was so much he still wanted to say to his twin, so much he still wanted the two of them to do together. He cleared his throat and forced a smile. "It is going to be okay," he croaked. "I am sure of it. The universe is going to help us this time."

William nodded and pulled away. "I hope so." He flashed a wan smile. "Someone'll have to console Melinda if it doesn't."

Kirill made a mental note to give William the lowdown on Melinda later…

Wheels crunched on gravel; a taxi trundled to a stop outside. The driver beeped the horn twice.

"Ready?" Kirill asked, not entirely sure if he meant only for the day out. Could he ever really be ready for what might happen with the DoJ next? Was he ready to lose his brother all over again? To be sent back to Moscow? To face what would almost certainly be a long and painful death at the hands of some creatively evil people? He liked to think so. And it wasn't as if he'd ever expected to live forever.

"Ready," William answered.

Kirill waved to the door. "Then let us go celebrate being thirty-eight."

And worry about all the future birthdays later.


End file.
